The Five Secret Techniques of the Konpaku Clan
by UnmovingGreatLibrary
Summary: After hearing from Youki for the first time in years, Youmu heads to the underworld to investigate. She isn't the only one trying to find him, though, and not every revelation is a welcome one...
1. Chapter 1

"Oh, a human?"

The voice came from somewhere in the darkness, followed by the shuffling sounds of feet on the cobblestones. The flame of a match flared up in the air. It wasn't much, but after hours of near-total darkness, it was enough to make Youmu squint and shield her eyes. What little she could make out past the glare wasn't very informative—the contours of a slim body and the glint of green eyes.

The match descended into a lantern, and warm light slowly welled up to illuminate the area. As Youmu's eyes adjusted, she got a better look at the scene in front of her. She'd been following the tunnel for kilometers, but here, it opened up into a wider cavern, fading away into darkness on all sides. In front of her, the path crossed a wooden bridge, straddling a craggy gulch with a stream trickling along the bottom. It was an elegant, but simple thing, a single arch of wood that had been worn smooth by centuries of footsteps. It wouldn't have looked out of place in the Netherworld.

And on top of it: a rail-thin blonde youkai, who was now peering over Youmu with open curiosity. "I haven't seen many of you down here, apart from that witch," she said, in a conversational tone. "What's your business?"

Youmu blinked the last of the darkness from her eyes. "I'm here to visit the Former Hell."

"What's a human need from it? You have everything you could want on the surface, don't you?"

Youmu stiffened up. Her hands drifted down to rest on the hilt of Roukanken. "It's a personal matter."

"Personal or not, I don't see what would bring a human down here."

" _It's none of your business._ " Youmu shifted her posture to subtly draw more attention to her sword.

The youkai didn't seem concerned. "I'm the guardian of this bridge. If you don't convince me, you aren't getting into the Former Capital. After all..." She leaned forward, raising the lantern for a better look at Youmu. "Maybe you were banished down here because you're some kind of horrible criminal."

Her tone was in a strange spot between mocking and outright hopeful. Normally, a youkai presenting an obstacle like this would be all the excuse Youmu needed to jump straight to a duel. She held herself back. She supposed she was going to need to explain herself sooner or later anyway. It might as well be now. "At least tell me your name before you start making demands of me."

"Oh? Hmm, it's been a _very_ long time since somebody asked about my name. I'm Parsee Mizuhashi."

"I'm Youmu Konpaku. I'm here to visit a… man. He sent me a letter, and I'm looking for him."

"Another human?"

"Yes."

"Two humans down here at once. That's even stranger." The youkai gave a smile that looked mostly genuine, but it was thoroughly undermined by the unsettling green glint in her eyes. "I can't imagine why he'd come down here. The surface is _so_ much nicer, isn't it?" Parsee's voice had a sharp chill to it, but it was subtle, the sort she didn't notice until a few seconds later. Being on the receiving end of her tone, Youmu had a brief insight to what it probably felt like to be stabbed to death with an icicle.

"I... don't know either. That's why I want to find him. He left years ago, and I haven't heard from him since."

"Oh. … hmm, a lover?"

"What? No."

"Your father?"

"No! It's nothing like that. It's... the master who taught me my fighting style."

"Oh." Parsee sounded disappointed, but recovered quickly. "Well, no other humans have passed this way for months, apart from that annoying witch."

"Couldn't he have come down while you were asleep, or..." Youmu paused, trying to dredge a phrase up from her always-cloudy memory. "… on break?" It wasn't a phrase that ever applied to _her_ , but she'd been led to believe that some people, sometimes, did get such luxuries.

"I've been here," Parsee said in a voice of delighted misery, "for a _very_ long time."

"Er. I see. Well." Youmu fumbled with her words. She wasn't really sure how to do this whole investigation thing. After a moment, she remembered her one clue, and tugged it from her pocket and handed it over. "This is all I have to go on, then."

The paper had seen better days. It was thoroughly crumpled, and blotched with hazy brown stains of indeterminate age and origin. In the sloppy, crooked handwriting of somebody taking notes on a bar napkin, it said,

"YOUMU. I'm in the former hell. Need to see you. Come immediately. - Konpaku."

Parsee skimmed the thing distastefully, then shrugged. "Not much to go on."

"No, it isn't." Youmu took the letter back and gave it another look, herself. "Is there anywhere he could be staying? Um, maybe an inn?"

"There are hundreds of empty buildings. Most people just grab one and settle in."

Youmu really hoped she wouldn't need to check hundreds of abandoned buildings. "... I'll need somewhere to stay too, so I might as well start with the inns."

"I know of one or two," Parsee admitted. "I never need something like that, myself. I haven't traveled in a long time. It must be _so_ nice."

Youmu was starting to sense a pattern to Parsee's speech. "You sound sort of, er."

"Hm?"

"... like you're angry at me."

Parsee's lips gave the slightest tug toward a smile. It was almost more unsettling than if she _had_ gotten angry. "I'm certain I have no idea what you mean."

"Er. Okay. … could you please just give me directions to an inn? If my master is in trouble, I'd like to find him soon."

Actually prying directions out of Parsee took a few minutes, hindered by the fact that she only seemed to know of half the locations by reputation. In the end, though, Youmu had what she needed, and she set out toward the city.

"Good luck, human," Parsee called after her. "I'm sure you'll find what you're looking for."

Somehow, it sounded like a threat.

* * *

Navigating the Former Capital proved to be more difficult than Parsee's directions had made it sound. People referred to the place as a city. At some point, that had probably been true. Now, it was just a whole lot of empty buildings. The path she was following spread out into a cobblestone avenue, wide enough that it looked like it should be bustling with travelers and carts. Yet, she was the only one in sight. Her footsteps echoed from empty storefronts and down bare alleys. Here and there, the signs of more recent habitation showed themselves—smashed doors, piles of sake bottles in an alley, the guttering remains of a cooking fire in the shadows of a tunnel.

Occasionally, she heard soft noises in the near distance that suggested she wasn't alone. She kept her hand on her sword and kept walking.

As she progressed, a glow appeared between the distant buildings. Drawing closer, it unfolded into an oasis of light. Torches, paper lanterns, and the occasional street corner bonfire drove back the darkness with the intensity of an afternoon sun. Crossing the hazy boundary at its edge was like stepping into a different world. On one side, nothing. On the other side, a living city, and everything that came with it.

A crooked-looking youkai, all joints and knobbly limbs, sat on a stoop, waving a basket invitingly at passers-by. Youmu got a brief glimpse of the squirming, red contents, and gagged as she hurried on. A small group of oni were gathered around an impromptu-looking fight, the two contenders grinning and cursing as they pushed one another back and forth. The cobblestone under one's foot shattered, and she lost her footing; the other took the opportunity to lunge over and pin her to the ground, beating her head with seismic force while even the loser guffawed gleefully. A group of vengeful spirits, glowing with multicolored rage, drifted past overhead. Youmu kept her eyes straight ahead and didn't dare to breathe until they were out of sight.

Fortunately, the inn wasn't very far into the city's populated area. It was in a row of what had once been large houses, but were now repurposed into businesses. With wood at a premium, the signs were a chaotic collection—slabs of stone with paint smeared on them, elaborate carvings in what she hoped wasn't bone, and in one case, a collection of a dozen shoes dangling from an elderly rope. At the end was the most hideous of them all. Rather than a physical sign, somebody had gotten the bright idea to splash the building with eye-searing pink paint, spelling 'IN' in meter-tall letters.

With great reluctance, Youmu decided that this was probably her destination.

"Er, hello," she said, pushing the door open. "Is this the inn? I've been told there's one here, but your sign says—"

She forgot the rest of the sentence as soon as she got her first good look at the interior. It didn't look like any inn she'd ever visited, but it looked kind of like the owner had _seen_ an inn at some point. A pile of furniture had been stacked up to make a reception counter. The wall behind it was lined with a haphazard pile of cabinets and shelves, with a repurposed hat rack covered in dangling keychains. The counter was only a meter or so tall, but the receptionist was barely visible past it. Worse, judging by the translucent wings poking up just past her head, she was a fairy.

"... I'm sorry," Youmu said. "I must be in the wrong place."

"Ah! Hey!" The fairy had apparently been napping. She jolted upright and then scrambled forward, climbing up something to lean over the counter. With bloody red hair and irises so dark that they were almost pure black, Youmu really didn't want to think about what sort of fairy she might be. "You said you were lookin' for an inn? You've gotta be blind if you don't see this here's an inn."

"It is? Um." Youmu fished around for a tactful way to express her doubts. Tact had never been her strong point.

The fairy beat her to the punch. "You think I can't run an inn just because I'm a fairy." She shook her head, scoffing. "Heard that a lot over the years. Most the people I heard it from got themselves ate sleeping somewhere less safe. Hard to beat a good inn, lady."

On one hand, staying at an inn run by a fairy was clearly a terrible idea. On the other hand, this was still the least unnerving place she'd seen down here. She sighed in defeat. "I'm sorry. I would... like to stay here."

"Now you're talkin' my language." The fairy clambered higher and leaned up the counter, getting a better look at her. "For one person and a ghost? That'll be eight hundred yen a night."

Youmu followed her gaze to her ghost half. "Just one person. I'm a half-phantom."

"Ooh, yeah, then I'm a half-oni."

"But you don't have horn—" Youmu caught herself at the last second. Sarcasm and Youmu's mind had never gotten fully acquainted. "Oh. Wait, no! I really am a half-phantom!" She held her hand out, and her phantom half wriggled through the air before landing on her palm. She offered it up for inspection. "This is part of me, see?"

"Hmm, I dunno..." Before the fairy could come to a decision, her gaze trailed downward to Youmu's hips. She paused for a moment, frowning to herself, then perked up. "Actually! Yeah, sure. You seem like a real upstanding sort. So, in that case, rent's six hundred yen a night, but you need to leave those swords here for a deposit."

"I can't just hand these over!" Youmu drew herself up to her full height, resting her hands on the hilt of Roukanken. "These swords are heirlooms! They're my birthright as the scion of the Konpaku fighting style."

"Yeah, but see, I gotta make sure you don't, um, trash the rooms and stuff. So just leave 'em here and it won't be a problem. Besides, if you go around stabbing people, it's gonna bring trouble back to me, and I don't need that."

Youmu scowled. The thought of turning her swords over to somebody she'd just met was bad enough. Giving them to a _fairy_ was even worse, and her stomach churned at the thought of going out into the capital unarmed. But, for now, it seemed like the alternative was sleeping on the street. "Fine," she said, and reluctantly slid them across the counter. "I'll be staying for one night. Or, um. … how does time work down here?"

"The same as it does anywhere else, I figure." The fairy yanked the swords out of Youmu's hand and put them in one of the cabinets along the back wall. Then, she fished a keychain off of the rack and tossed it over. "Your room's at the top of the stairs. Enjoy your stay and stuff."

* * *

The inn room was, at least technically, clean. Judging by the smell, Youmu suspected it hadn't been aired out since the hell had been vacated. She'd take what she could get, for now. With luck, she could find something better tomorrow.

By the time she dropped her belongings off and stepped back outside, the fairy at the front desk had already vanished. It was a bit strange, but she had no idea what time of day it was down here. Maybe the place was closing down for the night. It was no concern of hers, anyway. Youmu pushed the door open and stepped back onto the streets of Former Hell.

The walk to the underworld had given her plenty of time to think about how to find Youki... and she still hadn't come up with many ideas. Planning was, Youmu had to admit, not her strong point. She usually left that to Yuyuko. She was much better at the _doing_ parts. As long as the things that needed to be done didn't involve talking to people. Or thinking too hard.

She didn't think it would be too difficult, anyway. A powerful fighter from a lost school of swordsmanship would draw some attention. For all she knew, Youki had taken other pupils down here, and the Konpaku style was alive and flourishing. It seemed likely, at least. She'd placed her hopes on it, and planned accordingly.

"Er, if you have a moment," Youmu said to the first non-creepy person she saw on the street, five minutes later. "Have you seen a half-ghost swordsman recently?"

The youkai that she'd approached turned to face her. Her wizened face wrinkled up in consideration, and she tilted her head thoughtfully.

The back of her head split open, and a tongue lolled out. "No, I haven't," said the mouth on the back of her head.

"I-I, um," Youmu stammered, a few seconds later, when her heart started beating again. "Th-thank you... thank you for your time."

Youmu hurried on, breaking into a dash as soon as it felt permissible.

She didn't stop until she was well out of view. The direction she'd chosen to run apparently led deeper into the city. The crowds were bigger here, the streets were noisier, and the lights were brighter. It seemed like a promising start.

 _"Meow."_

It was the most distinctive 'meow' that Youmu had ever heard, like the cat equivalent of somebody clearing their throat. She turned around to find the source. A black cat was reared up on the ground, red splotches visible on its underside, parked right below her phantom half. It seemed oblivious to her human body, instead just insistently swatting the phantom. It only seemed to grow more annoyed the longer it kept at it.

"Please stop that," Youmu said, and pulled her phantom half away. "That isn't food."

 _"Meow,"_ the cat replied irritably.

Youmu didn't have much experience with cats, or living beings in general, really. She nodded uncertainly and turned to leave.

The cat followed, with a louder, _"Meow."_

Youmu glanced at it, but didn't stop. "Why are you following me?"

 _"Meow."_ The cat kept trotting along behind her.

After most of a block, she couldn't take the feeling of being watched any longer. She came to a stop and turned around, crouching to bring her closer to eye level with the cat. "... if I give you food, will you leave me alone?"

The cat stared at her expectantly, but didn't respond. She took that as a yes. With a sigh, she opened the small travel bag she'd brought with her. It didn't contain much, but it did have the scraps of her lunch. She found a few small pieces of meat and flicked them to the cat, who snapped them up without chewing.

"There," Youmu said. "Remember our deal. Please leave me alone."

 _"Meow."_ The cat hunched down to clean its paws, and Youmu only now noticed that it had two tails. She shivered and turned away. Creepy, and all the more reason to put some distance between it and her. She closed her bag and returned to the search.

* * *

Nobody had seen an old half-phantom swordsman. Or, they thought they might have seen him but couldn't say where. Or, they just listened to her long enough to rebut with a sales pitch. After two hours of combing through the underworld, Youmu hadn't gotten a single lead, and she'd wandered a few kilometers from the inn.

Fortunately, whoever had laid out the city had been very orderly about it. The major avenues ran in a tidy grid, with the smaller streets crossing between them. It was easy enough for her to judge the direction back toward the inn and head toward it through the back alleys.

The small streets felt even more foreign than the rest of the underworld. The noise of the crowds faded behind her, and the buildings on either side closed in. With no through traffic to worry about and no authority to stop them, the denizens had made the street into an extension of their houses. Here, a pile of scavenged junk ran from wall to wall. Elsewhere, the cobblestones had been ripped up to make room for a fire pit in the center of the street, which a few horned figures were hunched over and eating. She hurried past and prayed they hadn't seen her.

Before long, she was in a nearly abandoned area. The walls stretched crookedly overhead, and only the occasional distant light reassured her that she hadn't left civilization entirely. She crept along now, willing herself to make as little noise as possible.

She was rewarded by the sound of something scurrying along the rooftops above. The sound went silent for a moment, but it was followed by a solid _thump_ from the darkness behind her.

Youmu froze, and very slowly turned toward the sound, straining her ears for any sign of motion. Her hand drifted down toward her hip, only to grasp at empty air. It suddenly seemed like an especially bad time to not have a sword on her. She took a step back, and whatever was in the darkness padded softly closer.

* * *

It had all been Yuyuko's doing, like practically everything else. She was the one who took Youmu in, and she was the one to ask Youki to train her. She was also the one who, months later, had a calm but inquisitive talk with Youmu, then took her out to visit Youki by the flower beds.

He was hunched over when they arrived, stooped down and grumbling under his breath, with a small pile of trimmings one one side and a knife on the other. Only once they were closer did Youmu recognize that he was grumbling about _them_. "In the middle of something," he announced. "Can it wait?"

"Ahh, you said that you were in middle of something the last three times I came to talk to you, too," Yuyuko said thoughtfully. She tilted her head to the side and tapped her lips with a paper fan. "I'm not overworking you, am I?"

Youki didn't answer. He spent a few seconds in silence, making short, precise cuts to remove stalks from the flowers and setting them aside. Only when it became clear that Yuyuko wasn't going to leave of her own volition did he give up on ignoring them. Laying the knife aside, he rose to standing and wiped his hands on the front of his robe. "Guess now's as good a time as ever."

"Wonderful." Yuyuko wrapped an arm around Youmu's back and urged her forward. Youmu resisted for a moment, but with the size difference between the two, she didn't have much say in the matter. She was tiny then, a gangly little thing of skin and bone. Even her phantom half seemed especially insubstantial. "Youmu tells me that you haven't started her fencing lessons yet," Yuyuko said.

"Nnh." Youki rolled his shoulders. He looked unconcerned, but shot Youmu a glance that suggested he wouldn't forget this betrayal. "She's not ready."

"Then what can you do to help her get ready?"

"I've been busy with the garden," Youki said, tersely. "I'll start next week."

"Hmm, but when you asked for a pay advance yesterday, you said that you had the gardens all ready for spring, didn't you?" Youmu tapped her lips again, tilting her head back and looking thoughtfully up into space. "Oh, dear, I might be going senile. At such a young age, too..."

Youki gave a frustrated little groan. Defeated, he admitted, "Suppose I could make some time today."

"Oh! Wonderful. And what will today's lesson be?"

"I can show her some kata to practice or something."

"Oh, but I'm not sure if something that abstract will stick in the poor dear's head just yet. She's _very_ young, you know. Maybe you can start with teaching her an actual technique?"

"A technique it is," Youki said through gritted teeth.

"What kind of technique?"

"A secret technique of the Konpaku school of swordsmanship, passed down from master to student for centuries. _How about that_."

Yuyuko held his gaze for just a moment before smiling. "Ahh, that should work nicely."

"Great," Youki grumbled. He glanced to Youmu. "Got your practice sword, kid?"

Youmu had been somewhere between terrified and confused throughout the entire conversation. Even though Yuyuko was just asking normal questions in pleasant tone of voice, she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd just seen a fight of some sort. It took a few seconds for her to find her voice. "Y-yes, sir."

"'course you do." He begrudgingly drew his own sword, then gestured her closer. "Watch my moves and don't get in my way."

"I hadn't known that the Konpaku school had secret techniques," Yuyuko said conversationally. "How many of them are there, again?"

Youki shot her a look of annoyance. "... five."

"My, five secret techniques. You're in for quite an education, Youmu."

Youmu gave a confused nod. Youki stared straight at Yuyuko, until it was clear that she didn't plan to interrupt again. "Right. So, this one's pretty simple. Channel your spirit into a slash that can hit stuff pretty far away. Can set it up from a sheathed sword, too, so it makes for a pretty good sneak attack. What you wanna do is hold your sword like _this_..."

* * *

A sneak attack was exactly what Youmu needed at the moment, honestly.

Too bad she didn't have her swords. She'd just have to make do. Fortunately, she was next to a pile of scrap, and she was able to very quietly pluck a length of pipe from the heap. It was completely blunt, but it was roughly sword-sized. Right now, that was going to have to be good enough.

Youki had never been big on revealing the names of techniques, if they even existed in a first place. This attack was simple, anyway: perform a single forceful slash, charging the sword with spiritual energy in the process and releasing it in a wave of cutting force. More importantly, it was the type of move that she could do by pure reflex, without tipping her hand too early.

The footsteps came closer and closer, and Youmu's grip tightened around the pipe until her knuckles went white. In front of her, a silhouette slipped from the shadows.

"Stop right there!" Youmu raised the pipe threateningly. "If you move, I'll slice you...! Er. … club you...! To ribbons!"

"Eh?" The shadow froze. "Ah, dang, you're still alive, ain'tcha?"

"Yes. And I'm not going to let you kill me!"

"Huh? I wasn't plannin' on it, sister. I was kinda hoping that ghost that's been followin' you around would do it." Her unseen assailant stepped forward, and it was kind of hard for Youmu's mind to peg which part of her was _less_ threatening. She had red pigtails, for one thing. And cat ears. And a dress that looked only slightly less ostentatious than most of Yukari's wardrobe. While Youmu's mind grappled with this, the youkai leaned forward and prodded at her phantom half. "Was tryin' to give it a hint back there, but I guess it didn't take. You buddies or somesuch?"

"Don't touch that!" Youmu swatted her hand away with the pipe and took a defensive step to the side, her phantom half circling around behind her.

"Jeez, all this after you gave me lunch, too."

Youmu stared blankly at her. After a moment, the youkai helpfully added, "'cuz I was the cat back there, y'know?"

"... you have arms. Cats don't have arms. You're not going to fool me."

"Why would I be tryin' to fool you with somethin' like that?!"

"I don't know!" All this mystery was making Youmu's brain hurt, but at least the cat-girl didn't seem intent on attacking her. She tossed the pipe aside with a sigh. "I'm a half-phantom. It isn't going to kill me. Please leave me alone."

She turned to continue down the alley, but the youkai hurried to keep pace. "Ah, that'd explain it. Ya smell like death, and I figured it was on account of you bein' haunted. Guess it's from bein' half-dead."

"I do not smell like death!" More quietly, Youmu added, "I just bathed this morning."

"Hey, don't worry about it. It's a good smell. Real comfortin'."

Youmu ignored her and kept going. The cat still followed. She glanced back. "Why are you still following me?!"

"Hey, I'm a cat, I don't gotta make sense. Seems pretty interesting, though. _And_ the nice smell. Besides, not a lot of people dyin' this time of year. Really got my hopes up when ya walked into this dark alley, but damned if it didn't disappoint me."

"I don't plan on dying any time soon!"

"Nobody ever does," the cat said cheerfully. "An' if ya do die, it's a lot more convenient for me to be 'round to see it. Besides, ya don't seem like you're from around here, are ya? Figure ya could use a local guide, point out all the sights and such."

"I'm fine, _thank_ you."

If the youkai heard her, she sure didn't show it. "Ah, yeah, guide sounds good. Name's Rin Kaenbyou, but alla my friends call me Orin. At yer service! Up until ya die, at least. No promises then."

* * *

Rin didn't stop following until she was back at the inn.

Not that Rin stopped once they were _at_ the inn. Youmu tried to close the door in her face, but Rin slipped right in, not even seeming to notice. "Oh, huh, this place. Bold choice, sis."

"I'm not staying here for long," Youmu said. "Only until I can find another inn."

"I'd get lookin' pretty quick if I were you."

Youmu ignored her and stepped over to the counter. The fairy wasn't there.

"Hello?" she called deeper into the building. "... I'll just be going up into my room."

"Ah, whoever was runnin' it isn't around, huh?" Rin strolled over to rest her elbows on the counter, looking out over the scene with clear amusement. "Can't imagine why, quality establishment like this."

"There was an innkeeper here just a couple of hours ago!" Youmu said. "She must be sleeping or something. … well, she was a fairy. Do fairies sleep?"

"Figure there'd be a sign up or something, don't you?"

It _was_ strange enough to give Youmu some second thoughts about staying here overnight. After a moment's thought, she slipped over the fairy-sized counter. "I'm going to check out now!" she announced, more loudly. "I'll just take my swords and go! I'll leave the key here!"

Still, no voice answered her, although Rin snickered. It just made Youmu even more resolute to ignore her. After waiting a moment for a reply, she stepped over to the cabinet where the fairy had stashed her swords and threw it open.

The cabinet was empty. Not quite entirely—it held a few odds and ends, two greasy-looking cups, a few pieces of gravel, and a magnifying glass. But, notably, no swords.

Youmu stared at this scene, with outrage slowly building in her chest. "They aren't here."

Rin's snickering grew louder.

Youmu whirled on her, her cheeks flaring red. "What happened?! Did you do this?!"

"What? Me? No, no, you got the wrong girl! Jeez, humans, I tell ya. Laugh at them just a little, or haul a corpse or two outta a funeral, n' they get all cranky." Rin straightened up from the counter and stretched languidly, as only a cat could. "What kinda swords're we talkin'?"

"They were the swords I inherited from my master."

"Nice ones?"

"The best swords in all of Gensokyo," Youmu said, with just a touch of pride.

"Ahh, and ya gave 'em to a fairy. Y'ever stop to think that there's more empty buildings down here than anyone knows what to do with?"

"So?"

"So, it's easy enough to close up shop n' move elsewhere. 'specially if you wanna lay low for a few weeks 'cuz you just robbed a customer blind."

Youmu puzzled through this. "... the inn went out of business while I was gone?"

"What? No. Good with the swords, but you ain't much at thinkin', huh? No, point is, that girl's prolly long gone by now. Ya got scammed, sister."

Youmu frowned, as this new information slowly trickled through her brain. "... scammed? But what about..."

"Your swords? Probably sold 'em. That kinda thing's worth a lot more than a few nights of rent, y'know?" Rin smirked, needle-sharp fangs poking out past her lips. "See, sis, this kinda thing's why ya oughta have a guide!"


	2. Chapter 2

"So, this guy's a fence, right? And half a dozen people saw him walkin' down the street with swords today. So, good news is, we know who took them."

"Then I just need to track him down and fight him."

"Ah, not so fast, sis. Ya still haven't heard the bad news." Rin scampered ahead, putting enough space between the two that she could turn and face Youmu. "We ain't talkin' some normal fence, either. He's picky with his merchandise. Only snags stuff he can turn around and sell to the oni for booze. Has a bit of a drinkin' habit, I'm led t'understand."

Youmu frowned at that. "So we need to find the oni he sold it to?"

"He doesn't sell stuff to _a_ oni, he sells it to _the_ oni. Like, all of 'em. It'll make sense when we get there, promise!"

Youmu nodded uncertainly, and sighed to herself. She'd barely been in the former capital for six hours, and she'd already gotten in such a mess that she needed to get help from a cat. A cat who mostly wanted her for her corpse, at that.

She couldn't actually be sure that Rin wasn't trying to get her killed. She'd led Youmu out of the island of habitation she'd been in before, deeper into the seemingly endless streets of the capital. Here, there were fewer people around, but everything was bigger and brighter. Meters-tall bonfires filled some of the intersections, and lanterns burned on the front of almost every building. Some buildings looked like boulders had plowed through their center, leaving loose lumber strewn for a dozen meters in each direction, and nobody had bothered to scavenge it. Despite the lighter foot traffic, it was louder. Shouts and raucous laughter echoed through the air and echoed off the cavern ceiling. It was hard to tell whether the noise came from the next street over, or kilometers away.

Youmu sighed and patted at the empty spot on her hip. "I really wish I had my swords right now..."

"Ah, don't worry! Nobody's gonna jump ya or anything. This is oni territory." Rin gave a firm nod at that. "Nobody else'll start anything when there's an oni around. An' oni like to fight, but they won't attack ya over nothin'. Only if ya piss 'em off. Or look at 'em funny. Or they just don't like ya."

Youmu frowned thoughtfully. "That sounds pretty dangerous."

"Nah, they're big teddy bears. Didn'tcha hear what I just said?"

Step by step, their surroundings grew louder, until Youmu realized the source. Further down the road, there was a clearing. It was filled with so many fires that even the cavern ceiling was illuminated, shining through the smoky air like the moon on a cloudy night. The roar of a crowd rose from it, occasionally peaking in a wave of shouts or going silent for a few seconds.

As they drew closer, more details became apparent. The clearing was a single massive crater in the cavern's floor, and judging by the rubble piled around its edge, whatever buildings had stood there before had been demolished to make room. Past the wall of rubbish, the crater's sides sloped downward, covered in oni. There were hundreds of them, if not thousands: a sea of horns and bright kimono, gathered around bonfires and between sake barrels.

At the bottom of this makeshift amphitheater was the real attraction, though. A ring of bonfires surrounded the floor of the crater, and in the center, two oni were fighting. One knocked the other to the floor with a backhanded punch, and an excited murmur ran through the crowd. She stomped over to finish the job, but the oni on the ground lunged up and grabbed her by a horn, then slammed her head into the cavern floor with such force that chips of rock went flying. The crowd gave an uproarious cheer.

Youmu tore her eyes away from this spectacle to shoot Rin a concerned glance. "Should we really be here?"

"Ahh, they're busy watchin' the show," Rin said. "Besides, none of 'em wanna mess with me. We'll be fine. C'mon, we're goin' this way."

Rin weaved through the drifting tides of oni, and Youmu hurried after her. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"Well, them swords of yours've gotta be here somewhere. None of these small fry're gonna know nothin', though. We've gotta find a big boss oni. They'll know where t'find 'em."

Youmu really wanted to protest the idea of going out of their way to find the most powerful oni that they could, but before she could say anything, the crowd threatened to separate them again. She squeezed herself past a wall of oni, and didn't get a chance to speak until they'd gotten most of the way around the crater. The crowd around them thinned out, and slowly, Youmu realized that they were getting close.

It was something about the atmosphere. Everywhere else, the oni had been boisterous, wrestling each other, jostling for position at sake barrels, and having loud arguments. Here, they were quieter, and that just made them all the more imposing. These oni weren't fighting anybody right now, because everybody was giving them plenty of space out of deference. These oni were watching the fight and elegantly sipping their drinks, because they had nothing to prove.

The crowd was thin enough here that some of the oni actually noticed them. Some backed away from Rin, muttering. Some shot her loathing scowls, but kept to themselves. Not for the first time, Youmu wondered if she hadn't made a poor choice in companionship.

Rin cut her way across the crowd, to where one oni was standing on a stone slab that jutted out a meter or so over the bowl. "Hey! Hey, yo! 'scuse me, miss!"

The oni ignored her. That didn't stop Rin from walking right up and giving her a hearty slap on the back. "'scuse me, miss. You the one runnin' this show tonight?"

The oni grabbed Rin's wrist and pulled her hand from her back, then turned around. The look she shot Rin would put Eiki's judgmental stare to shame. "Didn't know the mansion's cat was honoring us with a visit today."

Rin was unimpressed. "Ah, hey, if I was here for Lady Satori, I'd have some spirits with me. That's just Negotiatin' 101, y'know. I'm here t'help a friend."

"Is that so," the oni replied dryly.

"Yep, sure is. So, anyway, don't figure you've had anybody come 'round and pawn some swords off, have ya? Seems like the kinda thing that'd be a hot commodity for you guys."

"We buy swords all the time."

"These were real special swords, though. They, uh, they were..."

Rin glanced to Youmu for help. Youmu stared blankly back until she got the hint. "Oh," she said. "They are a katana and a wakizashi. The katana has a three-and-a-half-shaku blade. The wakizashi has a one-and-a-half-shaku blade. The smith's signature on the katana is in an archaic script, but I think it says—"

"Uh," Rin interrupted. "Maybe dumb it down a bit for us reg'lar folk?"

"Oh. Um. ... they're a short sword and a long sword, and the long one has a pink flower on the sheath."

"Ah, huh. Yeah, we got something like that through here," the oni admitted. "Didn't figure they were stolen, though. Going to have to give that kid a piece of my mind."

"They're my swords," Youmu said. "Can I have them back?"

"Eh, well, thing is..." The oni rubbed at the back of her neck and glanced out over the fighting pit. "We used them as the reward for a round of fights. Somebody already claimed them."

"They're still mine," Youmu repeated. "Please give them back."

"Not that simple." The oni gave an expansive shrug. "Can't just go back on our word like that. Plus, the girl who won them is kind of... well, _I'm_ not gonna be the one to tell her to give them up."

"Oh, hey," Rin said. "The solution's pretty obvious, ain't it? Youmu's just gotta fight this girl and win 'em back."

"Hey, yeah!" The oni nodded thoughtfully at this. "Been a long time since we had a human in there. The crowd loves a good bloodbath."

"I didn't say I was going to fight anybody!" Youmu protested. "... and I'm not a human. And it wouldn't be a bloodbath."

"Uh-huh."

Youmu bristled. "Whether it's an oni, tengu, or the face of the gods, my Roukanken will slice—" She reached for Roukanken, only to realize the slight issue with this approach. "... oh. Um. I don't have any weapons to fight with."

"Hey, don't worry about it." The oni gave her a solid pat on the back. Youmu was pretty sure she felt her teeth rattle. "Easy enough to get you a sword or two. I'll send word and see if she's up for a round two."

"I still haven't agreed to it!"

"Hey, don't worry, sis!" Rin rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "You've got this! I mean, if ya _do_ die, I've still got dibs on your corpse, though. We're clear on that, yeah?"

* * *

Getting a sword, at least, proved to be easy enough. It wasn't a _good_ sword. In better circumstances, Youmu might not have even acknowledged it as a sword in general. It was little more than an iron rectangle with a hilt. Oni didn't need to bother with niceties like 'sharp edges' or 'cutting angles.' If you were strong enough, almost anything would slice through a person. Adding a point would, in fact, be pointless.

After giving the replacement sword a few experimental swings, Youmu stepped down into the arena.

The oni in charge of the ceremonies was already a step ahead of her. "So, everyone!" Her voice boomed down from above, echoing from the cavern floor and the distant ceiling. "Got a new challenger today. A human, even. Well, half-human, half-ghost. Same thing, really."

Youmu wasn't sure what she was supposed to do in this sort of situation. She raised her empty hand in an uncertain wave. The crowd booed.

"And!" The thunderous voice continued regardless. "She's challenging today's champion. Pretty dumb, right?"

The collected oni broke out into cheers, shouted insults toward Youmu, and general revelry. Youmu steeled herself and rested a hand on the sword. She wasn't accustomed to having an audience for her fights, but she wasn't about to let it get to her. That didn't change the fact that it was annoying.

The crowd's cheers died down... for the most part. Toward the other end of the arena, a murmur of excited conversation continued. It slowly rose in volume as the spectators parted to make way for their contender. By the time it reached the edge of the arena, it was a corridor wide enough for a parade.

The first thing Youmu saw was the horns, poking up past the last parting vestiges of the crowd: wide, sharp, and with a bow tied to one. A fist pumped in the air, waving to the revelers. The contender took a forceful step forward that made the ground itself rumble, and leapt the last few meters into the arena.

Suika Ibuki landed, with her arms outstretched overhead. The crowd broke out into applause.

Suika turned around, waving to the crowd and basking in the adulation. When she came to face Youmu again, she paused in recognition, then gave her a broad wave across the arena. "Oh, hey Youmu!"

Youmu stared in bewilderment. After a few seconds, she thought to shoot her a weak wave in return. "... hi."

She hadn't spoken anywhere near loud enough to be heard across the arena. Suika didn't seem to mind. "I didn't even know you were down here! You're gonna play with me, huh?"

"Well, er, I came here for my swords, so if you could just give them back...!"

Suika didn't seem to be listening. She thrust her gourd into the air and tilted it back to chug. The crowd cheered uproariously.

That seemed like a 'no.' Reluctantly, Youmu lifted the sword, holding it down and to the side. It was a familiar position, but not a familiar sensation. The thing was heavy and cumbersome. Roukanken was a light, perfect blade, absolutely balanced, without a gram of unnecessary weight. This thing felt like a cinder block on a stick.

Once she'd drank her fill, Suika dropped her gourd to her side again, to renewed cheering from the crowd. Then, she pushed off the ground with enough force to send new fractures creeping through it, leapt into the air, and vanished in the haze of smoke overhead.

Youmu spotted the descending blur just in time to whirl away. Suika's fist slammed into the ground where she'd been moments ago, flinging rubble into the air. Despite the rough landing, she didn't miss a beat. As Youmu stumbled backward from the cloud of dust, Suika shot forward, grinning madly and swinging her fist around for a punch.

 _WHOMP_. Youmu blocked with the side of the sword, and sort of wished she hadn't. The blow drove her down and backward with such force that she could feel the rock shifting beneath her feet.

"Hey, not bad! This might be fun after all!" Suika exclaimed.

"If you won't give back my swords, I'm going to have to slice you!" Youmu shouted back.

"Huh?" Suika casually threw a punch that would have felled a tree, and Youmu sidestepped it. "What swords do you mean?"

"My swords! You have them!"

"Heyyy, I'm not a thief, Youmu! That's not nice!"

Another punch went wide, and Youmu saw her opening. She couldn't make quick attacks with this sword, so she'd just have to settle for forceful ones. Pivoting away, she whirled around, putting the full force of her body into a swing. The sword sliced through the air with all the grace and precision of a collapsing building. Suika easily leapt over it, and gave her a tooth-rattling slap on the back of the head for good measure.

Youmu followed through until she was facing Suika again, but too slowly. She came around just in time for Suika to hit her with a jab to the stomach. From anybody else, it might have knocked the wind out of her. Coming from an oni, it was enough to lift her from her feet and launch her tumbling across the cobblestones. Her phantom half swam frantically through the air to catch up.

She managed to stop herself in a crouch and spring forward, swinging the sword in an overhead arc. It smashed into the ground, sending a sharp crack echoing from the cavern ceiling. The cobblestones split cleanly in half for half a dozen meters. But Suika had neatly sidestepped it.

"Too slow, Youmu!" she said, and casually slammed Youmu's chest with an uppercut that sent her flying again.

After bouncing halfway across the arena, Youmu staggered back to her feet. It was no easy task, since she felt like her entire body was one big bruise. In the time it took her to stand, Suika casually strolled over, taking another few swigs from her gourd on the way. "Not bad, Youmu!" She swallowed a final gulp, then tossed her gourd aside. "I'm getting kinda bored, though, so let's finish this."

* * *

Youmu had dreaded her daily training sessions at first.

"Again!" Youki barked. Youmu stepped forward, slicing her training sword through a kata that encompassed half a dozen blows.

"Your form's sloppy. Straighten your back. Feet on the ground."

Youmu sliced her way through the routine again, raining down attacks on an imaginary opponent.

"Harder!"

Youmu tightened her grip and put her whole body into her strikes this time, the air groaning as the blunt edge of the wooden sword cut through it.

She barely managed to finish the single one before she dropped to a knee, gasping for air. "M-master," she wheezed. "Please. I need a break."

"Nnh. Five minutes."

Youmu slumped down to the ground with a sigh of relief, and Youki reclined back on the stairs of the gardening shack, already rolling another cigarette. Their lessons were often like this, it felt like. Youki bellowed commands and pushed her to her limits. He, himself, rarely even deigned to stand up from his spot.

Youmu pulled her legs into the lotus position and tried to meditate. Youki had always suggested it during their downtime. Youmu wasn't quite savvy enough to recognize it as an excuse to keep her quiet.

A minute or two passed, with no sound but the crinkle of Youki's rolling paper. Youmu still couldn't clear her mind. Something had been bugging her over the past few months, and sitting here, with Youki in front of her, it was harder to ignore. She looked up from her lap, eyeing his phantom half as it drifted in a lazy circle around his head.

"Master," she said, and paused. She knew exactly what was bothering her, but not how to ask about it. "... why are we, um, different from other people?"

Youki eyed her in a way that made it clear he would have preferred if she'd stayed quiet. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Umm. We aren't ghosts... but we aren't humans, either." Youmu had to pause to consider that latter part. She'd met very few humans in her life.

Youki grumbled. "Can't ask Yuyuko this stuff?"

Youmu lowered her gaze, but didn't respond. She could still feel Youki's eyes on her anyway.

"Parents really ought've explained it to you," he continued.

Youmu's memories of her parents before coming to Hakugyokurou were dim and hazy. Certainly, if they'd explained this, she didn't remember any of it. "They didn't."

"Figures. … you're half human and half phantom. All there is to know."

It didn't explain as much as he seemed to think it did. "And you are too?"

"Whole Konpaku clan is. What's left of us, anyway."

Youmu had never been a very curious person, but what curiosity she had was piqued now. She moved from her meditative position, leaning forward with a hand resting on the ground. "Does that mean that we're related?"

"Distant," Youki answered more tersely.

"I didn't know I was related to other people...! Do you—"

She was cut off by a grunt of annoyance from Youki. He waved his free hand toward her like he was shooing a fly. "Supposed to be training, not chattering." He pulled his cigarette from his mouth to give it a flick. "If you've got enough wind in you to ask questions all day, you've got enough to practice."

Youmu froze for a moment, unsure if she'd done something wrong. With Youki, it was always better to assume the answer was 'yes.' She scrambled to her feet and dipped a deep bow, hands already on her sword again. "I'm sorry! I'll return to my studies."

Youki's expression softened for just a moment... then quickly rebounded. He braced his hands on his thighs and pushed himself up to standing with a grunt. "You wanna know about half-phantoms so much, I'll show you a half-phantom fighting technique. See if you're still so full of questions after you practice it for an hour."

Youmu winced, but her curiosity got the best of her. "... another secret technique?"

"... eh. Yeah. Second technique of the Konpaku fighting style." He waved his hand dismissively, then stubbed his cigarette out and tossed it aside. "Here, try this. Bring your phantom half up. What you want to do is..."

* * *

Youmu took a breath to steady herself and raised the sword. Suika snickered at this, but dropped into a fighting stance. "Whenever you're ready!"

In the air behind Youmu, her phantom churned, glowing from within like a storm cloud as it filled with energy. Suika's gaze turned toward it a moment too late. It shot forward and slammed into her gut, discharging with the force of a thunderclap. Suika stumbled backward under the blow, her eyes wide in surprise.

Youmu stepped forward right after it, her sword slicing through the air.

The rest of the fight was short and brutal. Now that she'd robbed Suika of the initiative, Youmu didn't take the risk of letting her recover. She followed the first attack with a sweep to her ankles, knocking Suika off-balance, followed by an upward slice that sent her flying. Within a minute, Suika was sprawled on her back, and Youmu had the sword leveled at her throat.

"S-surrender now," Youmu demanded breathlessly. "Or I'll slice you to ribbons."

"Aw, but we just started having fun!" Suika whined.

Youmu replied by giving the sword a pointed push against her throat. She hoped Suika wouldn't notice that it was too blunt to cut anything sturdier than rice paper.

Suika sighed, but threw her hands in the air. "Okay, okay, jeez! I give!"

The crowd's screams of outrage and disbelief grew deafening.

* * *

"Here you go." Suika hefted both swords in one hand and tossed them over.

Youmu caught them, and immediately held them up for an inspection. She slid Hakurouken from its sheath and looked along its edge, then did the same with Roukanken. She paused. "... there's something on the blade."

"Oh, yeah. I used it to cut a watermelon earlier," Suika said.

"They aren't kitchen knives," Youmu said, but she couldn't get too upset. Just having them in hand again was reassuring. She ran a cloth over Roukanken. Where it even brushed against the blade, it was sliced in half. Just as a sword was meant to be.

"What's a human doing underground, anyway? Did you come down to party with us?"

"No. I'm down here looking for my master."

"Aw, that's no fun!" Suika lunged forward, wrapping an arm around Youmu and leaning in to nuzzle against her stomach. "You should play with us! Gonna have an arm-wrestling tournament later! Plus, when I'm down here, we can get all the quality booze we want!"

Youmu pressed her hands to Suika's head and wriggled out of her grip. "Are you even listening to what I said?! I only got three days of vacation time for—"

 _"You."_

The voice was little more than a low hiss, but it cut through the air in a way that had little to do with volume. It didn't hurt that it thinned the crowd, too. Over a matter of seconds, most of the nearby oni reached an unspoken agreement that they had better places to be.

By the time Youmu turned around, there was a small clearing in the crowd. At the epicenter was a woman—her skin was pale, with tinges of sooty grey where a human might have pink, and unruly black hair hanging down to her shoulders. This was all in rather sharp contrast to her clothes, a kimono in a riot of warm colors, with orange and yellow flames patterned over a red background in a fashion that was only _slightly_ less blinding than actual fire. Below, the outfit's hanging bottom almost, but not quite, obscured the fact that the wearer had no legs.

Youmu shifted uneasily, and dragged her gaze away from the spot where feet definitely should have been. "A-ah, er. Can I help you?"

The woman came to a stop and crossed her arms, peering Youmu up and down tiredly. "You're a half-phantom," she hissed. Something deep in her throat made a noise like a crackling fire.

"I... am, yes. You, er, aren't an oni, are you?"

"Vengeful spirit. The oni are just the only ones who don't _completely_ lose their spine when they hear that"

It was the possibility Youmu had been uncomfortably considering. She took a step back and glanced around for an excuse to end the conversation, but nothing presented itself. Somewhere in the sea of bodies behind her, the glimpse of a horn informed her that Suika had gotten bored and wandered off. "I should... probably go."

"Not so fast." The spirit glided forward with surprising speed, cupping Youmu's chin in a hand and tilting it up for inspection. Her flesh was cold, barely warmer than the stone floor, but with just a touch of heat, like there was a fire hidden deep within. "Where did you learn to fight like that?" she demanded.

Youmu rested her hands on Roukanken. "Please let go of me."

"It's a simple question."

"... I learned it from my master."

"Presumably he has a name."

Youmu hesitated for a moment, wondering if it would be easier to just slash her here and now. "... Youki Konpaku."

"Thought I recognized it."

The spirit released her chin. Youmu took a step back and rubbed at the spot where her fingers had been, while the statement's implications slowly sank in. "... recognized it? You know him?"

"Unfortunately."

It was enough for Youmu's curiosity to finally override her fear. "I see." She dipped a deep bow, still trying to keep her eyes away from the woman's complete absence of feet. "My name is Youmu Konpaku. I'm his final student and the scion of the Konpaku clan."

"Kaizou. Still a vengeful spirit." Kaizou paused, then gestured dismissively. "... vengeful-ish. You forget what you were angry about, after the first millennium or two. More importantly, it just so happens that Youki owes me a good chunk of money."

"Er... okay. How much?"

" _Plenty_. Poor fool has a gambling habit, not a winning habit. Put it around a hundred thousand yen."

"Well, that's... unfortunate, but I don't know where—"

"I'm not the only one, either. The way I hear it, he's gone to ground. He racks up a nice debt to me, then he's nowhere to be found when the time comes to pay up." Kaizou's eyes flared up, dim red light crackling behind her pupils. "Isn't that _convenient_?"

The sight sent a shiver down Youmu's spine. It was enough to delay her response for a few seconds. "Er. Well. I'm not sure what that has to do with me."

Kaizou rested a hand on her shoulder, giving her a dry stare. "The way it sounds to me is, you're the closest thing he has to a next-of-kin. If you can pay me half, we'll call it good."

Her tone suggested, in a very unsubtle manner, that Youmu would very much prefer to avoid calling it _bad_. Youmu squirmed under the grip for a moment before gathering her resolve. "I haven't seen him in almost fifteen years..." she confessed. "But I'm looking for him. I'm sure that once I find him, he can pay you back."

"Fifteen years. You knew him when he was alive, then?"

Youmu frowned. "I think you must be confused. Half-phantoms aren't dead."

"Dead the normal way," Kaizou said. Seeing the growing confusion on Youmu's face, she gave an exasperated sigh to herself. "Kid, Youki Konpaku's _dead_ dead. A ghost. He died a decade ago."


	3. Chapter 3

The abandoned building Youmu chose to squat in was, like most others, almost perfectly preserved in the cavern's environment. The floor gave some worrying creaks in places, and the smell of creosote and mildew would linger in her nose for a week, but it was warm, it was dry, and it was safe.

More importantly, it wasn't staffed by a fairy. That had moved to the top of her requirements list, after yesterday.

Youmu had been awake for half an hour, but she wasn't entirely sure she'd ever fallen asleep in the first place. Her night's rest had been fitful, with everything she'd learned about Youki replaying in her head again and again. She hadn't learned a lot, really. At the same time, she'd learned entirely too much.

Now, she was laying on the makeshift bed she'd set up on the top floor of the house, staring at the moving shadows on the far wall and listening to the streetlife below. It served as a decent distraction, at least. Street banter in Former Hell was about equal parts improvised obscenities, death threats, excited shouting, and bestial snarls. A nice reminder that, no matter what else, this place was a prison.

Something thudded on the rooftop patio. A moment later, the door slid open, and Rin peeked inside.

"Oh, hey, finally found ya! You did a heck of a vanishin' act after that fight last night."

"I wanted to go to sleep," Youmu murmured.

"Doesn't matter much anyway! Lots of people saw you comin' this way, so ya weren't hard to track down. Figured if you could walk this far, ya were doin' okay."

Youmu didn't respond. Rin padded over to inspect her face, tails swishing curiously behind herself. "There's a pretty serious-lookin' gang type watchin' the door to this place. Y'know that?"

Youmu glanced up. "... what do you mean?"

"Ah, y'know. The kinda oni with a chipped horn and a chip on her shoulder, standin' around and tryin' to look way too casual. Thing is, an oni pretty much never looks _not_ casual. That's why it stands out so much when they try to do it deliberate-like."

Youmu still wasn't sure what it was supposed to mean, but she shrugged. "If she tries to hurt me, I'll slash her."

"Hey, yeah! Ya did pretty good at that yesterday. Figure you can handle yourself. Nice fightin' last night, by the way."

"... thank you."

"So!" Rin collapsed unceremoniously on the ground, sprawled in a way that only a cat would find comfortable. "What's on the menu for today?"

Youmu sighed and considered that. She'd been trying not to think about it, but she couldn't avoid the topic _forever_ , as pleasant at the prospect might sound. She opened her lips to speak, and it took a few seconds longer for words to find their way to them. "My master... is dead."

"Ah, ain't that just the luck! Need me to fetch my wheelbarrow?"

"Er. Not that kind of dead. He's a ghost. He died, went to Hell, and..." Youmu paused, furrowing her brow, "... escaped."

"Ahh, uh-huh, uh-huh."

"... that doesn't make any sense, though."

"Eh? Sure it does."

"How?"

"Eh, well, humans get outta Hell reg'lar enough. See, if ya've looked around much down here, ya've prolly noticed we have what y'might call a minor oni infestation. An' y'know what they've got a lot of in Hell proper?"

Youmu stared at her blankly for a moment, before answering, "Fire."

"What? No."

"... um. Whips?"

"Come on, sis, don't be daft." Rin searched Youmu's face for a punchline, then looked slightly troubled when she couldn't find one. " _Oni_! There's lotsa oni in Hell! Gotta have someone to do all that whippin' and pitchforkin', ya know. Lotsa oni, n' not much responsible adult supervision, if y'catch my drift. Whole place is kinda runnin' on a shoestring, as I hear it. So, now n' then, the oni'll find it in their heart to take a bit of money in exchange for helpin' someone sneak out of Hell proper, and wouldn't'cha know it, we're right next door. Speakin' metaphor'cally, that is. Different hells, but the metaphysical ductwork's all one big system. Get it?"

Youmu's head swam with all of this. It was a dangerous amount of words to try making sense of at once. "I think so. He... crawled out of Hell in a pipe?"

"He bribed on oni," Rin explained, much more patiently, "and they helped him sneak out to here."

"Oh. You could have just said that in the first place."

"... so, anyway, this guy you're lookin' for is still down here, right? Just got a little more mileage on 'im. Take it from me, sis, bein' a ghost doesn't slow humans down much."

Youmu went silent, struggling to put her feelings into words. "He owes a ghost money for gambling."

"Nothin' wrong with tossin' some bones now and then. S'good clean fun."

"It sounded like it was a lot of money, though... And he owes so much to other people that he had to go into hiding."

"Ah, hmm. That's a bit worse, yeah."

"I didn't even know he was dead! He was supposed to come back and finish my training. I waited for him..."

Rin nodded and rolled over onto her back to study Youmu's face. "'s that why you're lookin' for him? To finish your training?"

Youmu nodded uncertainly.

"Ya seem pretty well trained t'me, anyway. Ain't many alive that can beat a Deva of the Mountain. Especially since most of 'em who do die after, on account of the broken ribs n' stuff."

"It isn't just that! It's..." Youmu trailed off. Words were tricky things at the best of times, and she was thinking about some especially slippery subjects. Sure, Youki hadn't always been... welcoming, but he was... He was her master. He was _important_. That's all there was to it, really.

"I want to find him," Youmu finished instead. She pushed herself up from the bed and grabbed her swords. "I'm going to go looking."

* * *

This time, Youmu kept her mistakes from the previous day in mind. Before she approached somebody to ask about Youki, she took a few minutes to pick a suitable target out of the crowd. A _nice_ target, the kind of youkai that didn't look like it fed on the skulls of children for sustenance. It took longer than she would have liked. In practically any direction she looked, there were types of youkai she couldn't even name. A good reminder of why she needed to get this over with and return to the surface.

"Excuse me, miss." She stepped across the crowded street to draw up alongside a woman. _Just_ a woman; Youmu had made sure of that. No horns poking from her hair, no ghostly wisps following after her, no claws. Somebody so normal looked out of place down here, but Youmu wasn't about to question it. "Could I talk to you for a moment?"

The woman eyed her. "I don't see why not."

"I'm looking for a half-phant—er. A ghost. He has white hair, and—" Youmu paused, realizing she wasn't even sure how to describe him beyond that. 'Half-phantom' had always been enough in the past. It apparently wasn't very accurate anymore.

The woman crossed her arms impatiently. The motion made her sleeves ride up just enough to reveal messy clusters of eyes covering her forearms.

Youmu froze and stared. Many, many eyes stared back. "... you have... eyes on your arms."

"A real genius, you. Are you going to finish, or are you wasting my time?"

"Ah. Um. He escaped from hell and I am trying to find him."

The woman's eyes—all thirty or so—glared at her. She shook her head in annoyance and stepped back into the flow of traffic, muttering to herself.

"Heeeey, sister." Rin sidled up to Youmu, looping an arm around her and coaxing her aside. "Maybe lay off the 'he escaped from Hell' thing, alright?"

"Why?"

"Well, I mean, think about it this way. He ain't exactly the only person to get outta Hell, y'know? And the Ministry, _sometimes_ they don't take too kindly to that kinda thing, and they like to send shinigami to guide their wayward souls home." Rin hesitated just a moment before deciding not to trust in Youmu's ability to read between the lines. "Look, you're obviously not from around here, so people're gonna think you're here to round folks up for collection."

"I'm not a shinigami, though."

"Ah, yeah, you've got that sunny personality t'prove it! Just sayin', _some_ people might not get that. Anyway, let's get back to searchin', yeah?"

* * *

Today's search was slightly more productive than the day before... if only slightly. Leads popped up, but they were tenuous and shaky one. A small beast youkai with a scraggly tail and eyes like dinner plates swore it had seen somebody by Youki's description in a craft district a kilometer away. An oni seemed to recognize the name, but gave her nothing but a verbal lashing for the reminder. A few others glanced nervously around when they heard who she was asking about, and ended the conversation then and there.

It was enough hope to string her along, and enough of a distraction that she didn't notice the crowds thinning out around her—first, due to sheer location, and second, because nobody lasted long in Former Hell without learning to sense when a fight was brewing.

An oni stepped out into their path. True to Rin's description, there was a fist-sized chunk missing from one horn, leaving it so thin in one spot that it seemed like only tenacity was holding it together. Her clothes were fairly plain, and the fact that she'd settled on an ambush suggested she probably wasn't a superstar of the oni. On the other hand, the kanabo slung back over her shoulder looked like it weighed more than Youmu did. It didn't take much skill to get one's point across with a weapon like that.

As Youmu and Rin drew to a stop, Youmu became aware of half a dozen sets of shuffling footsteps behind her. More oni stepped out of alleys and doorways to surround them from all sides.

Youmu drew both of her swords, slowly and deliberately. The lead oni eyed her, but didn't react. "This the girl?" she asked somebody off to the side.

Kaizou stepped out from behind the wall of a building; quite a feat for somebody without legs. She looked Youmu up and down without apparent concern. "That's her."

"What is this?" Youmu demanded. "What are you doing?"

"Thought it would be obvious," Kaizou said. "I'm not the only one who wants money out of Youki, remember? These girls' employer was willing to give me a nice portion of what he owes me in exchange for some information on you."

"I already told you I can't pay you. I don't even get a paycheck!"

"We're not planning to get the money out of _you_ , anyway." The lead oni stepped forward, giving her club a heft. A series of footsteps echoed her, as the circle of oni drew tighter. "Oughta make pretty good bait to lure Youki out, though."

"If you want to die here, I won't deny you."

"Man, if I knew we were gonna be fightin' oni, I woulda brought some spirits along." Rin shook her head with a sigh, but didn't seem all that concerned. She gave her fingers a few determined snaps. Weak sparks shot out with each one, until a ghostly blue flame sprang to life in her hand. "Whenever you're ready, sis."

The oni seemed much more concerned about Rin than Youmu. Youmu was fine with that. It would make them easier targets.

The lead oni gave a dismissive snort, waving a hand toward the others. "Don't hurt the human any more than you need to, but hell, kill that cat if you want. Nobody's gonna miss her."

The collected oni slowly edged their way closer, but none of them wanted to be the first. Youmu's eyes darted side to side, following their every move. The standoff continued for a few tense seconds, until Rin broke the silence. "Aw, jeez, if none of ya are gonna do this, I will."

Youmu didn't quite see what Rin _did_ , but there was an explosion of blue light, followed by a wave of suffocating, vampiric cold. Whatever it was, it was apparently effective. Several oni staggered back, yelping in dismay.

The others, though, took it as their starting pistol. The oni closed in around the two like a crashing wave. Three charged at Youmu from one side, giving her little room to dodge. She stepped back, and a club slammed into the spot where she'd been. Another leapt forward in a reckless attack, swinging a staff overhead. She blocked it, and as the oni rebounded, stepped back and jabbed the oni's side with Hakurouken. The oni stumbled away, howling in pain, but another shoved through the fray to try her luck. Youmu barely got her swords up in time to block, deflecting the oni's club down to smash a few cobblestones into dust.

The others, though, were biding their time. A few meters behind her, Rin was squared off with three or four of them. The rest were all focused on Youmu, steadily advancing, making sure that the trap would be absolute when it closed.

* * *

Youki had been laying against the base of a tree when Youmu found him, his legs crossed, his eyes closed, and his phantom half drifting aimlessly overhead. Whenever they'd discussed it, he'd always insisted that he was meditating. Now that she was a little older, even Youmu understood duplicity enough to suspect that he was just looking for an excuse to sneak a nap in every day.

She hovered around his periphery, hoping that he might notice her and open his eyes. When that failed, she leaned in. "Master."

Youki didn't budge.

After a short while, she tried again. "Master."

Youki still didn't respond.

"Master, I need to talk to you about something."

When Youki didn't respond this time, she leaned in closer, raising her finger to give him a prod on the cheek. If nothing else, at this point, she needed to reassure herself that he was still alive. The finger had just started descending when he grumbled and shifted in place. "What the hell is it?"

Youmu froze, then straightened up and pulled her finger back. "I need to talk to you."

"About _what_?"

Youmu hesitated. Technically, that was an invitation for her to speak. From a slightly more nuanced perspective, though, he sounded like he was in a foul mood. That never boded well for negotiations. "Lady Yuyuko is planning to go into Gensokyo with Miss Yakumo this evening."

"I know that," Youki snapped. "I'm going with her."

"I, um..." Youmu faltered. Asserting herself had never been easy. "Could I go?"

"Nnh." Youki gave an annoyed grunt, but not _that_ annoyed. "One more head to watch isn't a big deal. It's Yuyuko's call to make, though."

"No, I mean... I want to go instead of you. As her bodyguard."

Youki cracked a single eyelid to peer at her. "You want to be her bodyguard for a trip to Gensokyo?"

"I do."

Youki's eyelid drift closed again, and for a moment, Youmu thought it was the end of the exchange. Then, he gave a defeated sigh and opened his eyes, rising toward the canopy overhead with a creaking of joints. Once he was standing, he casually unsheathed Roukanken. "Fight me for it."

"... w-what?"

"You heard what I said. You want to be her bodyguard? Fight me."

Youmu took a step back. Her hands came to an uncertain rest on the hilt of her training sword. "I'm not going to fight you!"

"Kid, there's youkai out there I can't fight and come out alive. It's simple. You can't fight me, you can't fight them."

Youmu still wasn't convinced. She considered dropping the subject. But, she'd been training for years, and she craved his respect just enough to wonder if she could beat him. Slowly, she unsheathed her sword and held it up to mirror Youki's position. "I-I." She took a breath to steady herself. "I'm ready."

"Your loss." Youki lowered his sword, stretching and limbering up his body. Then, in the blink of an eye, he was charging straight at her, with Roukanken gleaming with silver energy and leveled for a brutal thrust.

Youmu barely sidestepped it and brought her sword up to deflect the blow, and she was still close enough that his shoulder nearly bowled her over. "That's cheating!"

"You think a youkai's gonna give you warning before it attacks?" Youki whirled around, and Youmu got her first sense that the earlier attack had been merely a feint. The glow on it had built to an eye-searing level, and he carried his momentum around into a wide slash. An arc of silver energy ripped out through the air, just above chest level.

Youmu hadn't even recovered from her dodge yet. She stumbled backward, barely managing to duck beneath it, then rebounded back for an overhead slash. Youki blocked, but it was followed by three more attacks, probing his defenses from every angle. He had size and experience on her, but she had speed. A few more strikes, and he was driven a step backward, then another.

And, as she grew more confident, he parried, driving her blade straight down and into the ground. Before she could recover, his sword jerked up, slamming her across the face with the blunt side.

Youmu stumbled aside, and the battle was won. A followup blow knocked her feet out from beneath her. With surprising speed, Youki was on top of her, a boot holding her chest down and the tip of Roukanken leveled at her neck.

He lingered there for a moment, giving her a very pointed look, before stepping back. "The shrine maiden just died," he said, sheathing the sword. "Youkai are going wild down there. A kid like you goes down, you're liable to get yourself eaten."

Youmu pushed herself off the ground, but she didn't rise yet. She bowed deeply to him, her hair brushing the perfectly-manicured grass. "I was careless. Um. Can I have another chance?"

"Youkai aren't going to give second chances!"

"Please... teach me how to not make the same mistake. So I can go with her next time."

Youki scowled down at her, giving an annoyed shake of his head. When she didn't budge, his expression softened, and he turned his face aside. "Nothing's gonna fix that except more training. You've got a one-track mind. Cut whatever's in front of you, without a thought to defending yourself." Lest he sound too sympathetic, he added, " _Sloppy._ "

Youmu gave the barest of nods as she took her verbal licking. "I understand," she murmured.

"Good. Get out of here, kid. Go practice."

Youmu moved slowly. She pulled her sword from the ground and began tending to the blade. Youki walked back to the tree and settled down again, but she could feel his eyes on her the entire time. Finally, he gave a low groan of frustration. "You mope around like that all day, I'm gonna get a headache just looking at you."

"Er. I'm sorry, master."

Youki pushed himself back to his feet with a grunt. "Get over here. I'll teach you another secret technique."

"... you will?"

" _Still_ not letting you guard Yuyuko," he added sharply. "... but if it'll stop you from skulking around sighing all day..."

It did buoy her spirits pretty quickly. Youmu nodded and rose to her feet. For a moment, she detected what might have been the hint of a smile on Youki's face, but it was quickly buried under scowling disapproval. "This one'll take you ages to master anyway. Pain in the ass, but worth it." He shrugged Roukanken off his shoulder and sank down, lowering it to his side. "You're going to hold your sword like this..."

* * *

… and allowed her spirit to flow out, bathing it in a sickly white glow.

And, Youmu charged forward, every muscle in her body cooperating for a single massive slash. In the blink of an eye, she dashed ten meters. The path went straight past the oni and out of the circle, where Youmu came to a stop, her sword still outstretched and wisps of energy sublimating off of it. An unbroken silver thread of energy stretched behind it, tracing out dozens of lightning-fast attacks. It led from the center of the circle, zig-zagged between three oni, and then went in a straight line to her current position.

There was the briefest pause. Then, the strand of silver energy burst apart, sending silvery bullets ripping through the surroundings like shrapnel. Three oni collapsed to the ground, clutching at their wounds and yowling. Two more barely managed to avoid the worst of the attack, and the final one, the leader, was the only one who was more focused on Youmu. She turned to face her and jammed the tip of her kanabo into the street, sending cracks through the stone. "Cute trick," she growled. "But lemme show you how an oni fights."

The oni rolled her shoulders, then lunged forward and set off at a surprisingly fast sprint. Her club dragged the ground behind her, gouging a furrow in the street as easily as if it were paper, filling the air with the sound of tortured stone. As she got closer, she transferred the momentum into a vertical swing, sending a wave of pulverized rock flying outward.

Youmu spun aside, taking a few solid thumps on the back, but avoided the worst of it. As she came out of the maneuver, she rebounded, leaping forward into a slash. As the club's tip arced up through the air, Roukanken sliced down to meet it. Where they met, the club was neatly chopped in half, sending a meter-long segment of iron tumbling along the street.

Following right behind it, Hakurouken lunged straight forward through the oni's defenses stabbing her in the gut. She sputtered and lost all momentum, but Youmu kept up the assault. Only once she'd knocked the remains of the club aside and forced the oni to the ground did she stop.

"I-I'd like," Youmu said, between light gasps for breath, "you to answer some questions."

One of the few still-standing oni took a hesitant step toward the pair. Youmu shot her a pointed look, and she came to a stop. Beyond her, Rin was finishing up the last of her battle with the oni she'd engaged. At least, that's what it looked like. It was hard to make out much past the fire. A _lot_ of fire.

Kaizou, probably wisely, was long gone.

"Who do you work for?" Youmu continued, once it became clear that nobody was going to interrupt.

The oni glowered up at her, but even an oni wasn't dumb enough to complain too much when there was a sword at her throat. At least, this one wasn't. "Boss Shouken," she said. "Same as the rest of them."

"Is that the oni who sneaks people out of Hell?"

"Boss handles a lot of businesses."

"That's a real clever way of sayin' 'she's a gangster,'" Rin said from somewhere behind Youmu. She casually strolled up alongside the pair. Despite the fight, she didn't look much worse for the wear. Her hair was mussed and one hand was dripping with blood, but Youmu suspected it wasn't _her_ blood. This suspicion grew into a fervent hope as Rin raised the hand and started licking it clean. "Y'know, the organized crime kinda deal. Yakuza or whatever."

Youmu eyed her without glancing away from the oni on the ground. "You know her?"

"We've talked, by which I mean, now n' then she gets a bit too big for her britches and I've gotta show up on her doorstep with a dozen vengeful spirits t'keep her in line."

"You..." Youmu frowned to herself. "Are you an incident resolver?"

"Dunno what an incident is, sis. I just make sure things stay nice n' peaceful down here so Lady Satori don't get disturbed."

That sounded a lot like incident resolving to Youmu, but it wasn't the topic at hand. She looked back to the oni. "Why did she want you to capture me?"

The oni gave a shrug. "Ain't a mind-reader."

"Ah, hey, yannow." Rin leaned in, a predatory glint in her eye. "I heard that bein' possessed can work wonders for the memory. There's gotta be some vengeful spirits 'round here somewhere..."

The oni didn't look outright scared, but her tough facade certainly faltered. Within a few seconds, she gave a defeated grunt. "Not a big secret or anything. Worth a lot of money, smuggling somebody out of Hell, and this Youki guy never paid up. Boss figures having you would give her some more leverage."

"How's she expectin' to get paid if nobody even knows where this guy is in the first place?" Rin asked.

The oni smirked. "Ain't anything that happens down here without Boss Shouken finding out. She knows where to find him."

Youmu hadn't even caught the implication before, but now, hearing the oni say it, her face lit up. She gave the blade a threatening push against the oni's throat. "Then take me to him!"

"I said the boss knows, not me! All I know's what I've overheard."

"Oh, hey!" Rin said. "That's real helpful, then! Instead of makin' us go through all this work questionin', why don'tcha just tell us what you've heard about 'im, huh?"

The oni scowled up at her. "That one question, and I'm done."

"Hey, hey, real inhospitable of ya, don'tcha think? I mean, we're the ones with the swords n' stuff here."

"... it's fine," Youmu said. "I've heard everything I need already."

"Good." The oni zoned out for a moment, thinking, then shrugged. "Haven't heard much anyway. Guy's good with a sword, but he's a nobody. Spent five or six years in Hell before he got out. Before that, just drifting around from place to place whenever he outstayed his welcome."

"You must be thinking of somebody else," Youmu said. "He was a hermit."

"Not the way I hear it."

"Youki Konpaku was a hermit," Youki repeated, more insistently this time. "He went into seclusion to perfect his swordsmanship before he finished my training."

"As many people as he owes cash to down here? Not much of a hermit, you ask me."

The surprise in Youmu's mind was hardening into outrage. She gave the tip of her sword a pointed press in against the oni's neck. "If you keep lying to me, I'll finish you off."

"Whoa, hey, look!" Rin hurried over and grabbed Youmu's arms. "Ya don't need t'go carvin' her up! She answered our questions!"

"She's _lying_."

"Never heard of an oni lyin', sis."

Youmu shot her a look like a knife, but Rin didn't back down. She waved the oni away dismissively. "Ya answered our questions, so might as well scamper outta here. Maybe pick up some pieces of your friends on the way out, yeah?"

The oni hesitated. It was pretty obvious that she was weighing whether to take another shot at them or not. Youmu sort of hoped she would, since she was suddenly very much in the mood to cut something.

She didn't, though. The oni grumbled and rose to her feet, and Youmu reluctantly stepped back to allow it. Within a few seconds, they were watching her retreat back toward the more inhabited areas of the city.

"Where does this Boss Shouken live?" Youmu asked.

"Eh?" Rin glanced over to her. "Why's it matter?"

"It should be obvious. She knows where my master is. I just need to slice her and find out."

"A-ah, whoa, hey! Attackin' an oni gangster in her own hideout's a bit harder than fightin' a few small fry like that! She's got, like, three dozen thugs on her payroll!"

"Then I'll slice them, too."

Rin stared at her incredulously, then sighed. "Look, if one person was able t'find him, somebody else has gotta be able. Ya've just gotta keep askin' around. If ya still wanna keep lookin' at all."

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Eh? Well, I mean." Rin glanced in the direction of the retreating oni. "You heard her, right? Don't sound like this guy was a real winner."

" _Don't_ talk about my master like that."

"Look, I dunno what this guy was like when ya knew him, but sounds like he went downhill pretty quick. Happens to a lotta humans, y'know. Livin' the high life one day, dead in a ditch th' next. ... real pain, that. Liftin' corpses outta the ditch hurts my back something fierce."

"He became a hermit so he could perfect his style! He was supposed to come back!"

"Kinda sounds like he might not've planned on returnin' in the first place."

Youmu skewered Rin with a cold, sharp look, and her hand twitched toward Roukanken's hilt. She forced herself to turn away. "Are you going to tell me where the gangster lives?"

Rin hesitated. "... off east of the oni turf, in the old admin district. She set up shop in the old courts."

"Thank you."

"Just hopin' your body's all in one piece when they get done with ya. Scrapin' bits off the floor takes all the fun out of it."

Youmu didn't dignify the comment with a response. She took off toward the building where she'd taken up residence. Rin didn't follow, and soon, she was out of sight.


	4. Chapter 4

Youmu didn't actually need a lot of preparation to assault the hideout of an oni gangster.

She tended to the scrapes and bruises she'd gotten from her recent fights. She checked her swords to make sure that their blades were immaculate as always. She spent an hour practicing her kata, flowing through series of killing blows to reassure herself that they came to her as naturally as ever.

She went to sleep. When she woke up the next morning, Rin still hadn't returned. That was probably for the better, she supposed. There was no reason to involve somebody who didn't have any stake in the matter.

After having breakfast, Youmu set off for the hideout.

It was a bit of a walk. The administrative district had apparently been the center of the capital, and she had to work her way inward from the outskirts. It was the same sort of scenery she'd encountered in the oni territory, but even worse. The residents seemed like those youkai who couldn't find a niche anywhere else in the city, and who weren't quite self-sufficient enough to live outside its borders. Desperate eyes watched her from alleys and cracked doorways, and more than once, she had to rest a hand on her sword to dissuade footsteps behind her. A section several blocks wide had burnt down. Elsewhere, an aqueduct had burst, leaving a stagnant pond that cut half a neighborhood. Above it all, atop the highest spot in the cavern, the Palace of Earth Spirits stood, surrounded by ruins for half a kilometer.

She wasn't headed there though, fortunately. She hadn't been sure how to find the courthouse, but once she was in the area, it seemed obvious enough. It was the center of its own sprawling complex, built around a courtyard large enough to fit Hakugyokurou. In the center, a massive stone dharmachakra stood, with two of the spokes reduced to rubble around the base.

A few oni were loafing around the courtyard when she arrived. If the more powerful oni she'd met had been so calm that they didn't need to exert themselves, these oni were the exact opposite. They carried oversized weapons. They wore clothes that looked like they'd been ripped out of the cloth by hand, making them look brutish and imposing. A few of them had even painted blood splatters on the ends of their horns. Their eyes followed Youmu as she progressed toward the court, and as she ascended the stairs, she sensed them shuffling in to block her retreat.

She wasn't concerned. She'd strike them down when their time came.

The court's doors were massive things of stone, meters tall, with bodhisattvas engraved on one side and leering demons on the other. As she approached, they shuddered, and swung inward at a tectonic pace. The rumble echoed off every nearby surface. Youmu steeled herself as she stepped past them.

Inside, the court had been remodeled much more thoroughly. She stepped into a single cavernous room, centered around an aisle that stretched from the door to a dais on the other end. She'd spent enough time around the workings of the afterlife to know what she was looking at—a long walk toward judgment to let the recently-deceased reflect on their sins.

Whatever purpose the room had served before, though, most hints of it had been erased. Pillars had been knocked down and furniture had been dragged in, making it into a combination living area, rec room, and bar. At three points, open fires sent clouds of smoke billowing up to a crumbling hole in the ceiling.

These oni barely seemed to notice her as she walked up the aisle. A few eyes turned her way, and one enterprising soul gave a bellow of, "Hey, dinner's here!" She kept her hands on her swords and paid them no mind.

On the dais where the yama's podium had presumably stood, a rough throne had been erected out of slabs of rock. Whoever had decorated it hadn't had much of an eye for aesthetics _or_ subtlety, covering it in crude carvings of skulls and fire. Behind, it was framed by the gutted remains of a stained glass window. A single oni was sprawled atop the throne, her legs over one arm, her back propped against the other, and a bottle of sake in her lap. Youmu had never had much luck relying on her wits, but she had a sneaking suspicion that this was Boss Shouken.

At only a head taller than Youmu, she was dwarfed by the massive throne. One horn looked like it had been shattered and reattached with golden lacquer, leaving gleaming veins running through it. Her jacket mirrored what little Youmu had seen of outside world fashion on the recently deceased: a red blazer with a blouse, a slightly unreasonable amount of golden necklaces, and, of all things, _slacks_.

"Oh!" Shouken bellowed, at a volume that echoed from the walls and drowned out all the other conversation in the room. When it was conversation between oni, that was no easy feat. "Don't see a lot of half-phantoms these days. I'm going to assume you're the Konpaku girl!"

Youmu came to a stop at the base of the stairs. "My name is Youmu Konpaku. I'm looking for Youki Konpaku. Tell me where he is, or I'll cut you in half." She inclined her head in the ghost of a bow. Manners were important in these things.

Shouken stared at her in disbelief. Then, she threw her head back, letting out a thunderous guffaw that filled the room. "A-ah! HA! Some fire in this girl!" She barely blurted the words out between peals of laughter, and just kept right on going.

"Please take this seriously." Youmu drew her swords, slowly and deliberately. "I'm not going to ask again."

"Really rather not fight," Shouken said genially She eased up to standing, with a languid stretch and a deep, deep yawn. "You sent some of my girls home missing chunks last night, but you seem like a nice kid. Maybe calm down and we can do business, huh?"

"The only thing I need from you is my master's location. If you won't give me that, then you're my enemy."

Shouken studied her face, then shook her head with an amused snort. She waved a hand dismissively toward the crowd of oni behind Youmu. "Well, you heard her. Kick her ass, but keep her in one piece, alright?"

The sound of quite a lot of movement filled the air, as the entire room of oni started to drift her way, hefting weapons from wherever they'd been tossed aside. She turned an eye toward them, then looked back to Shouken. It seemed like a good reason to get this over with quickly.

Youmu dashed forward, leaping from step to step upward toward the throne. Shouken didn't seem concerned, strolling around the throne and barely paying her any mind. Youmu had barely crossed half the distance when a thrown segment of a pillar, a piece of marble the size of a person, smashed into the stairs mere meters away. She staggered to a stop, dodging a rain of fist-sized chunks of marble.

"Always a good idea to watch your back," Shouken said jovially. A kanabo was leaning against the side of her throne, and she hefted it over her shoulder. It was truly the weapon for an oni lacking in fashion sense or tact, a hunk of black metal bigger than she was, covered in golden studs. Only a few spots of dried blood attested that the thing wasn't just a ridiculous show piece. "So now you've gotta make a choice: gonna fight me, or the girls behind you?"

"I can kill them once I'm done with you," Youmu said matter-of-factly, and resumed her charge. A few more thrown weapons crashed to the floor on either side of her, but none were quite as disruptive as a ton of stone. As she approached, she slashed Roukanken up in a probing strike.

Shouken leapt back with surprising agility for an oni. She absorbed the landing and sprang forward again, putting her momentum into an overhead swing of her club. It wasn't a quick attack, but at its size, it didn't need to be. If Youmu blocked it, she'd be thrown aside. Even if she managed to slice the weapon in half, she'd be staring at a suddenly-flying chunk of iron the size of her torso.

Instead, she opted to leap backward, ceding a few steps and letting the club crash into the stairs. The wind off of it was enough to tug at her clothes, and the impact sent cracks creeping through the floor.

From behind, the first charging oni got close enough to attack, swinging a meters-long segment of pipe overhead. Youmu easily sidestepped the attack, but it was only the first of many. The crowd rushing up at her wasn't a distant concern anymore. In a matter of seconds, the oni would be able to bury her in sheer numbers.

* * *

"Master. Master, are you awake?"

Youmu rapped on the door to the gardening shack, for the fourth or fifth time this morning. It rattled in its frame, underscored by creaking protests from the hinges. It looked slightly run-down, but in the same way as everything else in the Netherworld. The air of fleeting transience just wouldn't be the same without aged wood and tarnished metal wherever one looked.

There was a gap between the boards on the wall, and Youmu eased up to it, peeking inside. The shack was a bit of a mess, with semi-orderly shelves of gardening supplies and weaponry poking up from a sea of bottles and discarded clothes.

Especially bottles, today.

"Master." Youmu pounded on the door again. "I'd like to talk to you."

She'd been at it for a few minutes, but this time was apparently the final straw. A low groan came from within, followed by the sound of Youki stirring in bed. The floor creaked as he rose to standing, then shuffled across to the door. Somewhere in there, a bottle was sent rolling by a brush from his foot.

The door cracked open just enough for him to blearily squint out against the sunlight. "Tryin' to sleep," he groaned.

"It's almost noon," said Youmu, who had never heard the word 'hangover' in her life. "And there's something I'd like to talk to you about."

"It can wait," Youki groaned.

He started pushing the door closed, but Youmu desperately raised a hand to stop it. "Master... um. Are you leaving?"

Youki froze, looking clearly surprised. It didn't take long for the expression to collapse into a scowl. He gave a low groan of bloody-minded inertia before announcing, "Give me five minutes."

"Okay..." Youmu studied his face, concerned. "Are you sick?"

He didn't answer. The door closed behind him.

Youmu waited patiently for five minutes, then for five more. Around the time that she started considering knocking again, the door opened, and Youki stepped out, shielding his eyes from the sun and grumbling under his breath. He leaned against the wall and propped his swords up next to him. "Thought Yuyuko wasn't supposed to tell you yet."

"... so you _are_ going to leave?"

"Going to, yeah."

"But... why?"

He shot her an irritable glance, then went back to glaring at the ground. "I'm old, kid. Wore out. Got no business doing this for as long as I have already. Gonna retire. Go be a hermit. Do whatever it is old swordsmen do."

"But... you haven't finished my training."

"Feh. I've got nothing left to teach you."

"Master, please take this seriously! You haven't even shown me all the secret techniques yet!"

"Kid, the whole style's—..." Youki stopped himself mid-sentence, shaking his head with a sigh. He eyed her. "... tell you what. You keep practicing, I'll come back once I've got it perfect and finish your training. How's that?"

Youmu considered that, then gave a hesitant nod. "... okay. But you aren't leaving today, right?"

"What? No. Cripes, kid. Take days to gather all this junk up."

"Are you going to keep teaching me until you leave, then...?"

Youki met her gaze and held it, stony-faced. She braced herself and prepared for him to shout at her. He didn't. "You really don't know when to take no for an answer," he said, somewhere between tired and amused. He straightened up and grabbed his swords, then tossed them over without warning. "Here."

Youmu was caught off-guard. She barely managed to catch the swords, stumbling backward and fumbling with them. "W-what? Why?"

"I leave, you're the new swordsman around here. Swordsman needs swords, doesn't she?"

"Well, yes, but... master, I can't take these."

"Just take them."

"Master, I shouldn't..."

Youki groaned and waved her protests aside. "Kid, just put the swords on!"

Youmu was so accustomed to following Youki's orders, she already had Hakurouken hanging from her back before she even realized it. "... but what will you use?"

"Training sword." Youki knelt down and snatched hers up, then gave it a lazy swipe in the air. "Besides, this one's an all-spiritual attack. Ready?"

Youmu still had a thousand more questions. The sudden knowledge that this could be her final lesson for months, if not years, was still burning in her mind, front and center. But, the familiar rhythm of training helped calm her down and ease her back into routine. Once she had the swords on, she took a step back and bowed. "I—yes. I'm ready, master."

"Good." Youki strolled past her, still giving the practice sword a few experimental swings to get used to its weight. "This one'll take you a while to get down anyway. Should eat up a few weeks. But, what you want to do is..."

* * *

The movements, as Youki had shown her that day, had indeed taken her weeks of practice to perfect. The attack required a dozen strikes, performed in the blink of an eye, at precise angles conducive for channeling one's soul.

By now, though, Youmu had it down to muscle memory. Roukanken flared with energy, and she slashed the space in front of her, leaving a lingering afterimage hanging in the air. She slashed it again, and again, a gleaming line hanging behind every strike, each one converging on a single point near the center. The point started as a dull glow and grew brighter with every slash, building up into a blinding singularity.

When it was complete, Youmu lunged forward and stabbed Roukanken through its heart. The blade sliced the point of light in two. The energy blasted out with the force of a bomb.

The detonation whipped up a hot wind, blowing Youmu's hair back. Fragments of energy flashed out across the room, trailing silvery streamers of light. A spider web of glowing contrails filled the air for a split second. Then, the projectiles corrected course and dived down to seek their prey.

It wasn't a powerful move, but it was _effective_. Even an oni had no defense against purely spiritual attacks. A dozen oni broke their charge, stumbling away from swooping projectiles or clutching at white-hot wounds. What had been a rushing army of oni dissolved into a chaotic mess. As soon as she saw its effects, Youmu whirled on Shouken again.

She was just in time to see that oversized kanabo swinging down again. She barely sidestepped it, and Shouken hefted it into another horizontal swing. It drove Youmu back, but she could see her opening now. The weapon had a long reach, but even in the hands of an oni, it was clumsy and slow. As Shouken reached the end of the arc and rebounded for another swing, Youmu made her move.

She lunged forward, striking at Shouken's unguarded side. The club was swinging away from her now, and Shouken had chosen her course. Even an oni wasn't going to be able to direct something that unwieldy on short notice. Youmu slashed her side, and Shouken fumblingly leapt away, half-carried by the weight of her weapon. Youmu followed through and slashed again, and Shouken dropped the club this time, letting it crash to the ground so she could stumble backward unburdened. Youmu raised her sword for a third slash...

… and became aware of footsteps sprinting up the stairs, a little too late. Not every oni had been stopped by her attack. The vanguard had finally caught up to her. Youmu hastily jerked to the side, raising Roukanken to defend herself, but she was a moment too late. The oni lunged up the stairs, putting the full force of her body into a quick jab to Youmu's stomach. It slammed the wind out of her and robbed her of her footing, sending her flying into the air.

When she landed, she didn't even have time to regain her bearings until a foot planted itself on her chest.

"Always a good idea to watch your back," Shouken repeated cheerfully. "Why don't we get you tied up so you don't cause any more trouble?"

* * *

Oni, as a species, had a lot of experience at tying up unwilling humans.

Youmu struggled, but once an oni had their hands on you, there wasn't much that leverage, agility, or wits could do to change that. Once they'd pulled her swords away from her, one tucked her under an arm and carried her off, kicking and screaming. A net was dug up from somewhere and thrown over her phantom half, which was soon hauled after her. Barely two minutes after she'd been knocked down, Youmu was firmly lashed to a pillar, with her phantom half pinned down so far across the room that the separation made her dizzy. She wasn't sure what would happen if it was pulled any farther away, but she usually liked to keep both halves of her soul pretty close to each other.

"Y'know, you didn't do half bad!" Shouken said, strolling in a slow circle around the pillar. "Can really tell Youki trained you himself."

Youmu didn't respond. After another half-lap, Shouken added, "He's done a pretty good job of carving up the girls I sent his way. Not good for business, that kinda thing. Makes people think they can get away with not paying their debts."

"I already told the others that I don't have any money," Youmu sighed. "You're wasting your time."

"Ah, that's the beauty of it! You don't need to! Youki, on the other hand..." Shouken came to a stop and leaned in, inspecting Youmu's face. "... well, once he hears we've got his little trainee in hand, he'll have to think a lot harder about whether he wants to cooperate with us."

"... and... what if he doesn't?" Youmu had a pretty good idea of the answer. She didn't like it.

Shouken shrugged. "He's good in a scrap, but nobody's invincible. Might take thirty of us to take him down, but it'll remind the neighbors to play nice. Wanna know the best thing about beating up a ghost? No body to clean up!"

Shouken reared back, laughing and slapping her knee, and some of the collected oni followed suit. Youmu struggled against the ropes, but they were sturdy and tight. She wasn't going to make much headway unless they gave her half a day without supervision. "I won't let you kill him."

"Hey, hey, he's already dead. Not even killing him, just sending him back to Hell. Since he won't pay up for getting him _out_ of Hell, I figure that's fair, don't you?"

"I won't let you kill him!"

"Dunno why you're even so set on defending a deadbeat like him. Guy's going nowhere. The living oughta worry about their own." Shouken leaned over, looking to somebody behind Youmu. "Hey! Hey! We still have the record? Yeah, the Konpaku one. Bring it up here."

There was some murmuring behind her, and the sound of some oni rummaging through furniture. Soon enough, one of them stepped forward, offering a scroll up to Shouken.

Even rolled up, the scroll was quite a sight. The rolls on either end were made of a rich, deep brown wood, capped with jade handles. The paper was such a pure white that it practically glowed, with golden trim around the edges. Shouken still unfurled it with the same care and grace that would normally be reserved for a used handkerchief. The tailing end dropped all the way to the floor. Youmu got the idea that it would reach halfway across the room if it were actually unrolled.

"Usually make a point of getting these whenever I can," Shouken said conversationally. "Official record of his entire judgment. Never heard of a yama that didn't have a stick up their ass, but they can dig up some _great_ blackmail material."

Youmu stayed stonily quiet. She had no idea what the oni was playing at, but it didn't seem like the kind of situation that could be improved by arguing with her.

Shouken ran the paper through her hands, skimming over it. "Ah, here we go. The Major Sins section. Usually some pretty good reading material. So, lessee... Worldly attachment, worldly attachment... not gonna bore you with this stuff. Hmm. Got his first kill working as a mercenary in the Keichou era."

Shouken paused to check Youmu's reaction to that. Youmu didn't particularly have one. Mercenary work was violent and grueling, for only the most merciless of souls. An admirable career.

"Nothing? Alright. Gambling, drinking... not even proper sins. Ahh, here's a juicy one. Blah blah, was assigned to train one 'Youmu Konpaku'—that'd be you, right?" Shouken glanced up from the scroll briefly, and her grin widened when she noticed the flush on Youmu's cheeks. "… and spent the first five years 'resenting her in a manner unbecoming of a mentor.'"

Youmu glanced aside to hide her expression. "I... already knew that."

"No good, huh? Oh, here. 'In the last three years of his life, forsook all duty and familial bonds to focus on the more immediate pleasures of the flesh.' Kinda unclear with yamas, though. That could mean practically anything."

"I already knew that too," Youmu said tersely. Her flush still deepened, though.

"Tough customer, huh? Hmm, let's see..." Shouken ran more of the scroll through her hands, murmuring to herself as she skimmed it. "'… was slothful and disobedient during his training...' '... allowed the ancient fighting style of his clan to fade...' Hmm. '… masked his shame by lying about his knowledge, fabricating new techniques to cover his ignorance and promoting them as truth.'"

Even lashed to a pillar, Youmu stiffened up. "What... do you mean?"

Shouken's smile grew sharper. "Well, I'm just going by what's on the scroll—"

Something pounded on the front door to the building, a thud that echoed throughout the room. Shouken ignored it and continued. "—but it sounds to me like he doesn't actually—"

Another thump on the door, louder this time. Shouken shot it an annoyed glare, but went back to speaking. "—have any real training. ... and he's the one that trained you, isn't he? Hey, how's that? Kinda pisses you off, doesn't it, knowing he's a lier and a—"

Another hammer blow to the door. This time, Youmu could hear a patter before and after it. There wasn't a single large object hitting the door. It was dozens of smaller ones. "—phony!" Shouken finished, then turned to bellow toward her subordinates. "Whoever's at the door, tell them to screw off!"

There were a few shouted replies, and the nearest oni hurried over to tug the door open. This was, it was immediately apparent, a mistake. Crackling blue flame gleamed through the crack. The oni paused, bewildered, but it was too late. A great tide of fire rolled forward, flinging both doors wide. It was a roiling cloud that filled the doorway from floor to ceiling, and only as it started flowing into the room did Youmu see that it was made of hundreds, if not thousands, of smaller objects.

Tendrils of flame started snaking inward. As they approached, Youmu could just make out the translucent, ghastly outlines of skulls in the middle. It wasn't fire. The room was being invaded by an army of vengeful spirits. The oni, too, notice this, and bellows of shock and fear echoed from the walls.

Rin strode in through the center of the doorway, a manic grin on her face. "Hey, what's happenin', girls?! Heard ya mighta seen my friend Youmu!"


	5. Chapter 5

Everything was chaos.

The air boiled with hundred of vengeful spirits. Youmu's own thoughts were drowned out by bellowing oni and clacking, spectral teeth. Soon, a stampede of feet was added to the mix, and the roar of shattered stone. Lashed to the pillar and completely unable to move, she did the only thing she could—squeezed her eyes shut and hoped _really_ hard that neither group paid her too much attention. A tendril of ghostly energy brushed across her face, and her breath caught in her throat until the spirit had moved on.

It was hard to say just how long the whole thing lasted. After some time, though, the shouts grew less frequent and more distant. The sense of spirits churning in the air died down. Footsteps approached, and the ropes went slack. Only then did Youmu dare to open her eyes.

The room looked like it had been hit by an earthquake, and possibly a few lesser natural disasters for good measure. In their rush to vacate the room, the oni had trampled everything in their way, including, in a few spots, portions of the wall. Only a few lucky individuals remained, passed out and drunk, having slept through the whole thing. For the most part, the vengeful spirits had chased after the oni, but a few remained circling near the ceiling like vultures.

"Kinda surprised, sis," Rin said, as she sliced the last of Youmu's restraints away with a wickedly sharp claw. "I didn't figure ya for the surrenderin' type. Thought they'd have to brain ya with somethin' to getcha tied up like this."

Youmu rubbed sorely at her wrists. "You didn't have to save me."

"'course I did. What kinda wicked n' unclean spirit would I be if I just let a friend walk off and get herself killed?"

Youmu didn't have an answer for that. She retrieved her swords, then walked over and slashed the net restraining her phantom half. It hovered back into position above her shoulder, and she breathed a sigh of relief. It was always a good idea to keep one's soul handy.

"Not a bad move, calling in the cat." Shouken's voice—slightly bitter—echoed from the front of the room. She stepped out from a doorway, eyeing them with a look of dull annoyance. "... if we're going to fight this out, let's get it over with."

Youmu turned toward her, raising Roukanken level with her eyes. "I can cut my way through you, if that's what you want."

"Hey, whoa, slow down, sis! There's this thing called questionin', y'know!" Rin scampered forward and waved one hand through a flourish. When it came to a stop, a vengeful spirit was cupped in her palm.

Shouken hadn't flinched at the sword, but her posture lost some of its combative edge as soon as she saw the spirit. "Didn't say I _wanted_ a fight," she griped.

"Well, that's all well n' good, then!" Rin advanced another step. "There won't be no fight if ya tell us what we wanna know."

Shouken shook her head and waved the argument aside. "I'm not dumb enough to face down the both of you, cat. What do you want?"

Rin shot Youmu an encouraging glance. It took Youmu four or five seconds to realize what she expected. She stepped forward and lowered her sword. "Where's Youki?"

"Still protecting the old man, huh?"

"The way I heard it, that wasn't the question she asked!" Rin gave the spirit a threatening thrust forward.

"... Youki's on the outskirts of the capital, to the west. Holed himself up in a real old hideout of one of the kishin chiefs. Tallest building in the area, hard to miss."

It felt too easy. Youmu was accustomed to the culture of Gensokyo's surface, where nobody was willing to volunteer an answer until she'd stabbed them a few times. Reluctantly, she nodded and sheathed her swords. "... that's all I wanted to know."

"See, that was real easy, wasn't it?" Rin gave a dismissive wave of her hand, and the vengeful spirit fluttered off toward... whatever it was they did to fill their time. Something unwholesome, certainly. "Guess ya've got an appointment with yer old man."

"He isn't my father," Youmu sighed.

As she turned to leave, she was cut off by Shouken's voice. "'Course, he still owes me a fortune."

Youmu glanced back. Shouken had her hands behind her head, looking thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "Won't anybody take me seriously if I let a debt like that walk out of here in one piece. Looking at it as a businesswoman, the thing to do would be to round up as many girls as it takes to kill you _and_ that cat, if that's what it takes to put Youki out of the picture."

Youmu paused mid-step, her hands settling onto Roukanken's blade.

"Plenty of people've tried, sister," Rin said, her tails swishing behind her. "Ya really gonna push your luck?"

"Heard that girl beat up Suika," Shouken continued. "But me n' the girls aren't like her. Wouldn't pull our punches against such a soft little thing." She paused a moment. Youmu prepared herself to spring into combat the second she made a move. "... must be soft-headed myself, though. Figure it'll take, oh, the better part of an hour to gather the girls up after all that commotion. Be a real shame if he left the capital 'fore we got there. I'd just have to convince everyone we killed him with no money to show for it."

Youmu slid Roukanken from its sheathe. "I could slash you now and make it—"

She was cut off by Rin's hand clamping over her mouth. "Dang, chased off by a big ol' vicious oni, sounds pretty scary!" she announced, tugging Youmu toward the door. "Guess we better get goin'!"

"What are you doing?!" Youmu hissed, once she managed to get her mouth free. "She's still dangerous!"

"She's tryin' to give ya a head start, dumbass!"

"That's not what she said!"

"You've gotta learn to read between th' lines! … n' the lines are metaphorical, if that wasn't real obvious!" Rin stopped once they were outside, and glanced around to make sure the coast was clear before leaning in. "Look, uh. Ain't nobody likes an oni troublemaker, but y'know who most of 'em like even less? It's me, n' they hate Lady Satori even more. Chasin' a bunch of oni outta their hideout's one thing, but if I actually go fightin' them, there'll be trouble for weeks."

"... are you saying you won't help me?"

"I'm sayin'..." Rin sighed, her shoulders drooping. "... look, sis, it's better for everyone if it don't come to that. Go find yer old man n' get him outta here before the oni get bored of waitin'. Less people gettin' their arms chopped off on both sides, that way."

"Um." The past half-hour was a blur that was already threatening to overwhelm Youmu, but her path seemed obvious from here. She bowed to Rin. "I think I understand. Thanks for your help."

"Just doin' what I can. … and good luck, sis."

* * *

The area where Youki had holed up was not one of the nicer places in Former Hell.

It being Former Hell, that was really saying something.

The buildings stretched off away from the center of the capital, growing more sparse as they went. The cobblestone streets tapered off into a patchwork of roads that were barely more than footpaths worn smooth by millennia of traffic. They backed up to the wall of the cavern, a massive, looming shadow, with only the occasional spot catching enough light to reassure her that she wasn't walking toward a void.

The foot traffic was sparse, and the youkai she encountered weren't any that she'd want to speak to. Predatory eyes turned to track her, and an air of curses poured off of cloaked figures. The lowest of the low, those hated by even the hated. Youki had taken refuge in a hell within a hell.

True to Shouken's word, at least, the building was easy to find. It had been built with all the grace and care she'd come to recognize from oni craftsmanship. That was to say, it looked like somebody had carved the thing out of a single massive boulder, a stone _edifice_ that loomed over everything else, all sharp angles and heft. Rectangular balconies jutted out from the sides, and massive engravings covered it in a subtle interplay of shadows.

There was one door, and it was a slab of stone as thick as Youmu's thigh. Once she was inside, she had to brace herself against the floor to shove it closed behind her. It slammed like the door of a morgue. A locking bar as thick as a small tree trunk laid nearby, and she hefted it into position just in case.

Within, the building looked like it had gone through multiple rounds of habitation and looting. It had obviously been an opulent palace when it was built. It was just as obvious that that had been a long, long time ago. Feast tables the size of houses lay empty or overturned. Pedestals sat empty, but had jagged wounds where their decorations had been ripped off. Some smaller rooms still held the remains of campfires where squatters had settled.

She checked the entire first floor and didn't find anything. When she found a staircase, she headed up.

Floor after floor held only varieties of the same junk. As she got higher, the signs of more recent habitation faded, giving way to only the thoroughly-cleaned bones of former luxury. After four or five floors, the windows displayed the capital stretching out below. She searched through ransacked armories, decaying pantries, rubble-filled ballrooms, and the dusty remains of a bath large enough to swim in. She was starting to lose hope when a voice echoed through the building. "Hey! Who's there?"

Youmu paused, looking for the source, but didn't respond. The voice continued. "Thought I told you to stop poking around in here! Nothing left worth looting anyway."

It was definitely Youki's voice. Cautiously, Youmu followed it back through the hallway. There he was, standing on the staircase, peering down from the next floor. When she first stepped into view, his hands were on his sword, preparing for a fight. When he got a good look at her, his face screwed up in surprise, then relaxed.

"I. Er." Youmu fumbled her words. She'd been anticipating this day for a decade, but somehow never planned what to say. "I'm sorry, master." She bent over in a deep bow. "I came as fast as I could."

Youki nodded uncertainly. "I figure you did." His hands hands slackened their grip on his sword, then released it. "Good timing anyway. I've got tea brewing. Get up here."

* * *

Youki had settled into what looked like it had once been the master suite, a sprawling chamber on the top floor of the building, alongside a massive balcony. In the main living area, he'd assembled what furniture he could salvage. A rumpled bed and a chair sat along one wall. Along the other, a wobbly-legged table and a stove. Strewn throughout the middle of the room were bottles, discarded clothes, and a few crates that looked like he'd been using them as furniture, centuries old if not millennia.

The room wasn't Youmu's focus, though. That was Youki. He didn't look like he'd aged a day, but something felt off anyway. It took her a few seconds to place it: his human body stood alone, without a phantom half over his shoulder. After all, he was dead. However his soul had been divided before, now he was entirely a spirit.

Youki snagged a teapot from the stove and filled two chipped mugs. One of them, he kept for himself. He dropped the other in front of Youmu with a grunt.

"Half gave up hope on you finding me," Youki said, flopping down onto one of the crates. His joints didn't pop anymore. Youmu supposed it was just another difference that came with being dead.

"Because you were hiding?"

"Yeah. Sent the letter before I had to go to ground."

"... because you owed money to an oni."

Youki gave a noncommittal grunt, but didn't deny it. Youmu had sort of been hoping he would.

They drank in silence for a few minutes. She stared uneasily at the floor, only daring to look up at him now and then.

Youki sighed and sat his cup aside. "You've got questions, kid. You don't ask them now, you're never going to get answers."

Youmu gave a slight nod, but she had no idea where to begin. "... why did you leave?" she asked, after a few more seconds passed in silence.

"Eh? We talked about it half a dozen times. Too old. Needed to go find somewhere to lay down and die."

"You said you were going to become a hermit and perfect the Konpaku style."

"... guess I did."

"Did you?"

Youki had the shame to glance away before he answered. "Didn't... so much get around to it, no."

"The oni said that all you did was drink and gamble."

Youki didn't respond.

"You were supposed to come back and finish my training."

Youki sat in stony silence. It only spurred Youmu on, with a slight flush rising to her cheeks.

"Is that why you wanted me to meet you here? To finish my training?" she asked.

Youki grunted. "You fought across a city of youkai to get to me, kid. Nothing left for me to teach you."

Youmu moved almost without thinking about it. This was a scenario, she suddenly realized, that she'd been subconsciously rehearsing in the back of her head. She sat her tea aside and rested her hands on Roukanken. "I'm here to learn the final technique of the Konpaku fighting style."

"Said I've got nothing to teach you," he repeated bitterly.

Youmu's grip tightened until her knuckles were white. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she squeezed them away. "Master," she said softly. "There isn't a final technique, is there?"

"No. There isn't."

"Is _anything_ you taught me true?"

Youki grunted. "Bits and pieces."

Youmu took a deep breath to try calming herself, but it quivered with mounting frustration. As she exhaled, she drew Roukanken from its sheath.

Youki eyed it. Calmly, he sat his tea aside and rose from his seat, then drew his own sword to mirror her position. "Come on, then. Let's see how good you've gotten."

Youmu hesitated just a moment, uncertain. Youki held his ground. She struck.

It was a swift overhead slash, angry, with all the force her slender body could put into it. Youki's blade flashed up to meet it, but she rebounded for another strike. For a few seconds, she was driven on by pure outrage, hammering at his defenses from every direction. Youki stepped back, retreating under the storm of attacks. His foot brushed a pile of bottles, sending them rolling across the floor.

Youki leapt backward. Her next blow landed on thin air, leaving her off-balance,and Youki was well-positioned to take advantage of it. He lunged forward again, putting his full momentum into a single slash. She barely blocked it in time, and from a poor angle. The blow rattled through her body and drove her back.

She wasn't in any mood to cede more ground, though. Silver flared along Roukanken's blade, and she lashed at him, sending a wave of energy slicing through the room. Stray papers fluttered into the air in its wake. Youki stumbled to the side, barely avoiding it. She followed it with another, and another, splintering furniture and shattering bottles. She ended with a vicious overhead slash that split the stone floor and shook the air.

Youki was straining now. His ghostly physique didn't show any signs of fatigue, but he was only barely keeping up with her attacks. One of the slashes clipped his robe, sending scraps of phantasmal cloth drifting through the air until they faded away. At the tail end of one of her slashes, he sidestepped and lunged, breaking her rhythm. She dodged backward and drew Hakurouken, batting the attack away and countering.

Outside, taiko drums echoed through the cavern.

Another silver slash. As Youki recovered from his dodge, she pressed forward, raining blows on him with both swords.

And, once his attention was on them, her phantom half slammed in against his side. Youki was knocked from his feet, sent sprawling toward the floor.

He'd barely even landed before she had a blade at his neck.

For a few seconds, the only sounds were Youmu struggling to catch her breath, layered over the war drums outside. "Why," she gasped, "did you want me to come here?"

Sprawled out on the floor and defenseless, Youki suddenly looked small, somehow. Had he always been so thin beneath his robes? In her memories, he was lean and powerful, a looming mountain of a man. … but she'd been younger then. It was hard to say whether he'd changed, or she had.

He had, she realized, not used any half-phantom fighting techniques. He couldn't, after all. He was no longer a half-phantom.

Youki shot her a glance, somewhere between bitter and apologetic. Slowly, he pulled back. When she didn't attack him for it, he rose to standing and walked over to the counter. He pulled a tin of tobacco from a mess of supplies and started the familiar rhythm of rolling a cigarette.

Right about when her patience was at an end, he said, "Never paid much attention when my old master was teaching me."

Whatever Youmu had been expecting, it wasn't that. Her posture softened, and she slowly lowered the tip of her blade. "... what does that have to do with anything?"

"Even younger than you, back then. Young and dumb, and thought I had better things to do. Got in plenty of fights on my own, so I didn't figure I needed the help. Then he died, and eh." Youki gave a noncommittal shrug, and paused as he rolled his cigarette. He didn't speak again until it was lit and tucked in the corner of his mouth. "You want the real Konpaku Style? It died with him. All I've got's the bits I remember and whatever I could fill the holes with."

The drums were drawing ever closer. Now, they rumbled from the cavern walls like thunder.

Youmu faltered, as these new truths slowly found their place within her head. "It's... a lie, then."

"The one you learned, yeah. Just a bunch of nonsense I threw together. Works pretty good, I like to think. But it's no ancient style."

"Then... it's a new style that you invented. It's fine then, right? You shouldn't have lied about it, but... I'll learn whatever style you have to teach me, master."

Youki shot her an annoyed look. It was almost nostalgic, in a way. "Already told you I've got nothing left to teach you. You just won that fight, didn't you? Besides, think I'm at the end of the road. Hear that?" He inclined his head toward the direction of the drums. "Oni. Figure they've come to make an example out of me. They like to make a big show out of it. Keeps the payments coming in on time."

"We can fight them," Youmu said earnestly. "The two of us could beat them."

Youki waved a hand dismissively. "... y'know what I learned from my master dying? Not a damn thing. Kept being the same fool I always was. Only thing that changed is, somewhere in there, I went from being a young good-for-nothing to an old one." He paused to flick the ashes from his cigarette. "Went to Hell for a reason, kid. Training you's the only half-decent thing I ever did, and even that was a lie."

Below, the oni hammered on the building's main door. The impact resonated through the entire structure.

"If you don't want to leave and you won't train me, why did you ask me to come here?" Youmu asked.

"Can't set things straight," he said. "... but I can apologize for them being so messed up."

"You called me here just to apologize?"

"No. Look. Y'know what Hakurouken does?"

"It cuts things," Youmu answered automatically.

A blow finally smashed the front door open, and the entire structure rumbled.

"It isn't a kitchen knife, kid. ... it cuts _confusion_. Kill a ghost with it, they go straight to Nirvana."

"I... knew that, but." Youmu glanced toward the door to the room. Hurried, stomping footsteps were making their way through the building. They didn't have long. "What about it?"

"... I got nothing left for me here. I'm dead, and I know it. But Hell's... look, I messed up plenty when I was alive. Last thing I need's a bunch of oni drilling it into my skull."

"You... called me here just so you can skip punishment for your sins?"

The footsteps were close, now, bounding up the stairway.

"Yeah," Youki said quietly. "One last request from your old master."

Youmu's expression slowly hardened. "I fought oni to get here. I could have died. Don't you think you're being selfish, master?"

Youki glanced guiltily aside. He didn't say anything.

The footsteps were very close now. The door to the room rattled. It barely even registered with Youmu.

She froze in indecision. Her cheeks burned red. She felt like the inside of her head was boiling.

The door rattled again, then flew open in a shower of splinters.

Youmu's arm lashed forward. Hakurouken slashed through Youki.

Oni stormed into the room. They found Youmu standing alone, panting, with tears in her eyes. She shot them a burning glare. " _Leave_ ," she said, in a hoarse voice. "There isn't anything for you here."


	6. Epilogue

A few matters kept Youmu in Former Hell for one more day. She did some necessary shopping for supplies for the return trip. She did some _un_ necessary shopping and got herself a new yukata for the upcoming summer festivals, because cloth was surprisingly cheap down here and she had to make her very limited stipend stretch as far as it could. She said goodbye to Suika. She bought some souvenirs.

At the end of the day, though, she still found herself walking down the broad avenue that led out of the capital. It seemed a bit less creepy on the way out, perhaps because she'd already seen the worst the city had to offer. … but she still didn't dare to let her eyes linger too long on the shadows. No reason to push her luck.

She was nearing the city outskirts when she heard a now-familiar, _"meow."_ She glanced up, but still didn't spot the source before a two-tailed black cat leapt from the rooftops and landed by her feet, looking up at her expectantly. _"Meow."_

"Er, isn't it easier to speak if you're human-shaped?"

Rin stared up at her in silence for a few seconds, like she was debating it. Then the shadows seemed to close in around her body. The resulting blob of darkness pushed upward and outward, growing larger and giving the occasional slightly disconcerting twitch. When the shadows parted again, Rin was standing there, looking slightly annoyed at the situation.

"Hey, I can talk just fine when I'm like that, yannow. Can say a lot with a meow."

"It's no good if I can't understand it."

"Ain't my problem if you humans need a billion words to getcher point across." Rin turned and strolled down the street, forcing Youmu to scramble to catch up with her. "Got yer business down here all wrapped up, then?"

"I do, yes..."

"Figured. Ain't nobody from the surface that's gonna linger down here when they don't gotta. 'cept that witch, but she's weird in the head, I figure."

"She's... really confusing sometimes," Youmu agreed.

Rin's eyes drifted down to the bag dangling from Youmu's hand. "Didn't have that before, did ya?"

"I don't see why it's any of your business."

"Ooh, that means it's somethin' real juicy, don't it? Get yerself some nice bedroom clothes from one of them jorogumo shops, maybe?"

"What? No!" When Rin still kept peering at them with open interest, Youmu capitulated with a sigh. "They're souvenirs for my employer. She has a sweet tooth."

"Souvenirs from all the way down here? Lucky to have an employee like you, sis. 'course... the only sweet thing down here is mushrooms, n' those'll make her drop dead if they cooked 'em wrong."

Youmu frowned thoughtfully. "... I don't think it will be an issue."

"Hey, if ya say so." Rin seemed to accept it. She dropped the argument, and they walked in silence for a minute or two before. "So, anyway," she said, "why'd ya kill your old man?"

Rin managed to ask it so casually, it took a moment for Youmu to realize just what she'd heard. When she did, her whole body stiffened in shock mid-step, and she barely managed to stop herself from falling to the ground face-first. "A-ah, excuse me?"

"C'mon, sis, ya think I can't dig up a little info when I want? Oni don't lie, but they love to gossip."

"They told you about that?!"

"Nothin' much! Just that you up 'n murdered him. Kinda surprised, ya didn't really seem the type."

"I didn't murder him! … he was already dead, for one thing."

"Uh-huh. Look, I ain't brushed up on my metaphysics lately, but I figure it's pretty close."

"My master..." Youmu sighed and glanced guiltily aside. "He didn't have anything to teach me. He was trying to get out of being punished for his sins. That's... all he wanted from me. To slash him and send him to nirvana."

"Huh. 'n you just went along with it after all that?"

"He was a selfish, unrepentant liar. It was, um... for the best."

"Ohhh. So ya just wanted him outta your hair that bad?"

"No, I..." Youmu sank down, flustered. She wasn't great at expressing complex thoughts at the best of time, and her thoughts were _very_ complex right now. "He was still my master. He... _raised_ me. Sort of."

"Uh, huh, 'kay. So you _were_ tryin' t'help him."

"I don't know," Youmu said, in a tiny voice. "Maybe it's both."

Rin studied her face, then gave up with an expansive shrug. "Can't say I get it, but I guess it ain't really my concern if humans wanna go around stabbin' each other anyway. Keeps business good."

Youmu gave an uncertain nod, but didn't press the issue further. She was just grateful for the reprieve from questioning, really. They continued on in silence, until they passed the last few outlying buildings. It left them looking over the slope that led down to the bridge, where Parsee's silhouette was already visible in the lantern light.

They said a few final goodbyes. Youmu had never been good at goodbyes—most people in the Netherworld had already had their fill of them. Soon, Rin was heading back into the capital. Youmu gave it one last look before turning away. She walked down the ancient road, away from Former Hell and toward the sunlight above.


End file.
